


The Hollow Shades

by sarensen



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Adventure, Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Horror, Horror Cliches, M/M, Mystery, Various NPCs - Freeform, ancient sith artefacts, but like ‘the mummy (1999)’ level of horror, dread masters - Freeform, except for the parts where kylo is trying to murder hux ofc, fade-to-black sex, hux saves the day, objects of power, post-TFA, snoke identity theory, some gore in the last chapters, star wars: the old republic - Freeform, surprisingly soft kylux, tw: brief mention of porgs, with his brain but mostly his love, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 22:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12994173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarensen/pseuds/sarensen
Summary: Following the destruction of Starkiller Base, the crew of the Finalizer finds themselves in orbit over the dead moon Oricon, where Supreme Leader Snoke has ordered the excavation of some old artefacts supposedly powerful enough to win the war in the First Order’s favor.When the dig crew starts mysteriously dying amid ludicrous rumors of an “ancient evil” unwittingly released by the dig, Hux decides to take Kylo and retrieve the artefacts from Oricon himself. After all - there are no such things as curses.But with the objects safely onboard, strange things start happening on the Finalizer, things Hux can’t explain... Fear takes root, in small things at first, but soon escalating into subtle and maddening horror that has him doubting his own sanity.Hounded by the curse he now has no choice but to believe in, Hux must uncover the secrets of the masks... before it’s too late.——Borrows from (and takes extensive liberties with) Star Wars: The Old Republic lore, but you definitely don’t need to know anything about the games in order to enjoy this :)





	1. Prologue - Heeeeeere's Kylo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art by the hugely talented [zaera_d](https://zaera-d.tumblr.com/)! Getting to develop the idea together and growing the story from that initial scene was incredibly fun. I had an absolute blast writing this from start to finish.
> 
> Deep and eternal gratitude to [sterne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterne) for being the most excellent beta I could have asked for, whose support and encouragement without I could not have finished this.
> 
> Finally, if you would like some creepy background ambience while reading, I recommend [these](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPSpcFVGRtc) [tracks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4omi_VIQ3M).

"I don't have much time." 

The screen flares to life. Bright grey-blue illuminates a man's face, a pale oval in the surrounding darkness. The video quality is degraded, glitchy; it jumps and stutters. The audio scratches and hisses white noise. The man's face appears slightly distorted, warped by horizontal lines of orange-green, stretching and elongating before shimmering back into place. The room behind him is black-dark, crawling with video noise and static. A thick black bar travels vertically over the screen. The video flickers.

The man has been running. His breaths are loud, but tinny over the feed. The video lags, and half his face is frozen for a moment. When it reanimates, for the barest second, it looks like there might be another face behind it. He glances over his shoulder, neck corded. When he looks back, the light of the screen reflects two perfect circles of white in his pupils, eyes stretched just slightly too wide over darkened bags. 

"He's coming."

The audio cracks and breaks over the harsh whisper. His hair is faded, pale red, colors washed out by the blue-white glare of the screen.

"If you are watching this message, it means I am dead, and they have been freed. I--"

Something moves in the grainy black next to him. The man whips around to stare at the spot, holding his breath. Without the sound of his frantic panting the room is quiet, even the static hiss of the degrading audio feed seeming to fade. The man's eyes flicker around in the dark as if trying to make sense of it, trying to see something. When he can make out nothing, he squeezes his eyes shut and starts breathing again, licking his lips as he turns back to the camera.

"It's imperative that they must be kept apart. No matter what, they must not be allowed to join together. Their power on--," he pauses to swallow dryly, voice cracking only slightly as he whispers, "only works when they are united. Keep them apart, and you can contain that power. But if the circle is allowed to complete they will be unstoppable. There is no hope for us then."

A loud, metallic clang from behind. 

The man flinches violently, unable to prevent a soft whimper from escaping his throat, and half straightens up as he whips around. His fists are clenched, knuckles white and straining. The deathly quiet of the room is broken only by the softly hissing static of the video feed. The quiet stretches on, and the man slowly starts to lose the tension in his shoulders, still staring fixedly at the door. 

And then another echoing bang breaks the silence. 

The man hastens back to the camera, leaning down, his face up-close now. His voice is urgent, soft. "He's here. I'm out of time. You must stop them, whatever it takes. They call themselves the--"

The loud screech of durasteel on durasteel cuts him off. Behind him, a door is being slowly pried open, a square of deeper black gouged out of the shadows. The man scrambles back and moves to the side, almost off screen. His hands are shaking.

The video jumps and pitches violently, lines cutting diagonally across the screen. The white-noise background audio grows louder, harsher. In the doorway, a lightsaber ignites with a loud growl, its red glow chasing the shadows from the room. It outlines the shape of a tall man. He is coming inside.

The image jumps wildly, cuts in half, then settles, fluttering lightly. 

To the side of the screen, the man with red hair lifts his hands in front of him in a gesture of defense, or perhaps surrender. His voice trembles slightly as he says, "Kylo, please--"

The video feed contorts the air around them. Static white noise rises to an almost-scream.

And then the screen goes dark.

 


	2. The thing about Oricon

"Sir. We've lost another one."

Hux pauses in the middle of adding his digital signature to a munitions order. The brief silence that follows is interrupted only by the soft crackle of a radio as Stormtroopers pass by in the corridor outside, like an underscore to the quiet hum of the Finalizer's ion drives. Hux lays his data pad carefully on his desk, and slowly looks up. To Thanisson's credit, he isn't quite cowering. He stands in parade rest, feet spread apart hip-width, hands crossed behind his back, and is staring at a spot on the wall vaguely above Hux's head.

Hux allows himself to exhale through his nose, flattening his hands on the table beside his datapad. "How?"

Thanisson swallows slightly. "Another accident, sir. He uh. Fell off his ladder."

"He fell off his ladder." Hux repeats slowly, watching the petty officer. 

Thanisson shifts his weight ever so slightly. "The ground crew who reported it in claim... Well, they say they saw him being pushed off."

Hux waves a dismissive hand, picking up his data pad again. His hoverchair dips slightly as he leans his elbows on the broad, blackwood desk. "I've no time for petty squabbles. Incarcerate the man responsible, hire some new hands and tell the crew to get on with it."

In Hux's experience, there are few problems that cannot be solved by throwing credits at them.

"Yes, sir." Thanisson half turns to go, then pauses. "It's just that. Well, sir..."

Hux looks up at him again, one eyebrow raised.

Thanisson finishes, "Well, they say he was pushed off by an invisible force."

"By the Emperor’s black heart," Hux exclaims, exasperated, "This is the third one this week."

Thanisson lowers his gaze at the rebuke, scuffing one polished boot lightly over the coarse grey carpeting. Hands fidgeting behind his back, he turns his head slightly to glance outside the large viewport. "It's this place..."

A hexagonal cut of transparisteel spans the entire starboard wall of Hux's office, perfectly framing a fiery, dark-crusted orb, hovering in a fine sheen of gold-brown space dust and debris caught in the gravitational field of a massive, sandy-colored planet. Oricon: a once-verdant moon in the Corva sector of the Outer Rim territories, mined to ruin in the days of the Empire. Fiery patches of lava smoulder on the surface, bubbling through enormous fissures ripped right into the rock and oozing onto blackened topsoil. Volcanic smog-storms riddle its atmosphere with flashes of bright lightning, and where the clouds part, fire seethes under every inch of arid rock, illuminating it from below with an menacing orange glow. 

And if Hux were the kind of person to prescribe to such things he would say the moon was  _ glowering _ at them. It hangs in quiet fury in the viewport, watching the Finalizer where she hovers roughly over the coordinates of an excavation site, hidden from their view beneath broiling clouds of ash. Supreme Leader Snoke ordered the Finalizer herself to oversee the dig, sending them off with little more information than that they were looking for "ancient and powerful artefacts" that could finally sway the war in their favour. Hux's repeated requests for a more thorough brief had been repeatedly denied; to his chagrin, the Supreme Leader had refused an audience with him, replying to the comm request simply with the coordinates to Oricon.

And so here they are, drifting aimlessly while Stormtroopers train off their cabin fever in the holosims and his bridge personnel while away the time gambling their rations in games of sabacc, and Hux signs order after order after order and gets through more admin work than he has had time for in the past year.

And this  _ grates _ at Hux, making him more short-tempered than usual. He can think of at least a hundred more important things the Finalizer should be doing, not the least of which includes rallying an attack against the Resistance. Instead, they've been ordered to babysit an excavation for these supposed powerful artefacts which, if Hux is to be entirely honest, he isn't entirely convinced are even real.

All in all, it has started to feel a lot like unspoken punishment for the Starkiller Base fiasco. They've been sent to the corner, as it were; children to be disciplined for their lack of competence, and being on such thin ice already, Hux is in no position to refuse the Supreme Leader's orders.

It's humiliating.

He starts to bounce one leg on the ball of his foot.

To add insult to injury, the ground crew they've been assigned to oversee are a bunch of the most unprofessional, unhygienic recreants he's ever had the displeasure of working with. 

They did their job, at first. Transmissions came in like clockwork from the moon's surface, twice every standard cycle at first and fourth shift, status reports and progress reports and expenditure reports. They'd been stationed here for close to a month (apparently, what they're looking for was buried a  _ very _ long way down) when it all began. 

Small things, at first. Brief mentions in the standard reports of tools disappearing from around the site. Hux sharpened security around the dig, sent down a few more ‘troopers. Then the reports started mentioning mysterious sounds heard at the dig at night. Animals, said one report. Bandits, said another. Ghosts, said the one that was rewarded with an ugly crack across Hux's datapad screen when he'd slammed it on the table.

Then crew members started vanishing. Lieutenant Mitaka, whose family owned land on a mining colony and had significant experience with hired crew, called them Runners - conmen who stuck around long enough to see their first paycheck but never the second. But more crew disappeared, two, three, four every week. Rumours of a curse started spreading among the men, and one by one, the amount of people willing to replace them started to dwindle.

Of course, Mitaka assured him, the number of "accidents" at the site had nothing to do with the First Order's handsome liability pay. But Hux had doubts.

And then people started dying, and the rumours started spiralling out of control.

And so, for the past month, he has been faced with a shortage of men and a fast-approaching deadline. 

"The men are scared," Thanisson continues, staring fixedly out the viewport as if the moon draws his gaze there. His eyes have this distant look in them, like his body is present in Hux's office, but his mind is elsewhere. His voice grows soft. "Those who haven't died are starting to abandon their posts... But." He frowns slightly. "They say the curse follows you. There is no escaping it. You can't hide. It will find you, always, and drive you mad with paranoia and fear until you can't take it anymore, until it crawls right into your head and steals your very soul. They say an ancient evil lurks beneath the ground, and that we've angered it by delving into its slumber..."

"What an utterly ludicrous thing to say, petty officer," Hux scoffs. He leans back slightly in his chair, crossing his legs at the knee, and tugs his greatcoat up a little more around his neck against the cold, recycled air of the ship.

The sound of his voice seems to break whatever trance came over Thanisson. He shuffles slightly, looking away from the viewport and back at the spot somewhere over Hux's shoulder. "Yes, sir."

"Thanisson. Is the First Order an organization given to silly flights of fancy such as believing in curses?"

Thanisson shakes his head, then seems to remember his rank and clips, "No, sir."

"And will we sit back and allow such blatant and barefaced insubordination?"

"No, sir."

Hux scowls, shaking his head and pushing his chair back to stand up. "‘Abandoning their posts'," he mutters, "Cowards. Ready a landfall transport, Thanisson. I depart for Oricon at first shift tomorrow."

Thanisson blinks, hands almost dropping to his sides before he remembers himself and straightens up again. "You're going down there, sir?"

"Of course I am." Hux straightens the lapels of his uniform tunic and gathers his datapad. He didn't learn much from his mother in the short, unfortunate span of her life, but she'd been right about one thing: if you want something done properly, do it yourself. "We've wasted enough time drifting around this glorified lump of coal."

Thanisson looks unconvinced, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "But sir, you can't go down there alone..."  

Hux walks past Thanisson, keying the door behind him. As it hisses open, he says, "I won't be."

He leaves the petty officer staring after him, taking a left down the corridor and heading for his personal quarters. Three soft chimes announce the end of fourth shift. His datapad vibrates in his pocket with the latest report from Oricon. He ignores it.

 

\---

 

It's well into fifth shift. The Finalizer's staff has settled down for what counts as her night, a skeleton crew manning the bridge and flight controls with sparse Stormtrooper patrols strolling the corridors. The lighting in Hux's personal quarters is low, warm yellow bathing the walls in comforting mellow shadows. Hux's boots thud lightly on the carpeting as he marches to one end of the antechamber, whirls around by the sofa, and paces back to the other end. His greatcoat drapes lazily over the backrest of the couch, hat perched on one arm. The heat has been turned up - a luxury afforded only to the highest ranking officers onboard, and Hux has rolled up his sleeves and taken his gloves off. 

"Snoke is throwing my failure in my face," he seethes, stalking to the end of the room, past where Kylo Ren is slouched slightly over his desk, just too big to fit comfortably into the swiveling chair. He's in his breeches and a dark tank, tunic and coattails heaped in a pile of menacing black cloth on the couch. He has his hair tied back in a short, very non-regulation (if infuriatingly attractive) queue, and he's using a soft cloth to clean the pieces of Hux's disassembled blaster. He murmurs, "Mm hmm."

Hux glares at the ground, whipping around to march back to the other end of the room. "Exiling us on some insignificant mission like a child sent to its room. We're the laughing stock of the First Order."

Kylo hums, lifting the barrel of the blaster to peer down the cylinder with one eye before using his forefinger to rub lightly at the inside of it. He has one leg drawn up against his chest, shin pressing against the edge of the desk.

Hux clenches his fists, whirling around when he reaches the wall and starting off to the other end of the room again. "A curse," he continues, knowing that Kylo will be able to follow his train of thought not because he can read minds, but because he's been on the receiving end of Hux's rants many times (and the cause of them, often enough). He continues, agitated, "Of all things! A curse! This isn't some backwater, underdeveloped planet yet to discover space travel. This is the First Order!"

Kylo, seemingly satisfied with his work, lays the barrel of Hux's blaster on the desk among the disassembled pieces and starts, "You do know Oricon actually  _ is _ an underdevelo--"

"Snoke  _ knew _ !" Hux interrupts him. "I'm sure of it. He knew how much I would hate this, and he sent me here on purpose. I am telling you, Kylo." He jabs his forefinger in Kylo's direction. "This is punishment."

"So you've said." Kylo levers himself out of Hux's chair, like a small mountain unfolding. He stretches out, spine clicking, and comes to stand in front of Hux, effectively halting his progress back to the other end of the antechamber. When Hux comes to a standstill, glaring at him, Kylo says, "You shouldn't let Snoke get under your skin like this."

"No. Do you know what we  _ should _ be doing? Going after the Resistance Base in the Ileenium System. Not playing nanny to a bunch of gutless cowards."

"Our reinforcements aren't here yet, Hux," Kylo placates, voice gentle and deep, "You know we have to wait. We can't attack them with only the Finalizer. We need more people." He puts his hands on Hux's shoulders, then slowly drags them over his chest to where his uniform collar clips together under his chin.

"I still believe we should strike now," Hux mutters darkly, "Even with just one ship. If we attack the heart of their base we can land a crushing blow. Sitting around out here in dead space accomplishes nothing. We can't afford to waste time like this."

Kylo's big fingers wrestle with the catch until it releases, and he pulls the zipper down, spreading the lapels of Hux's tunic open with his hands. "We have to finish this mission first. We have orders. And besides, if these artefacts are as powerful as Supreme Leader says, we could use them."

_ If they even exist_, Hux doesn’t add. Instead, he says, "The sooner we get this done with, the better, then."

Kylo pushes his tunic off his shoulders, letting it drop to the ground, and starts pulling Hux towards the bedroom.

Hux, ignoring him, continues, "I've decided to go down there myself. Those ingrates clearly can't be trusted to do the work they've been tasked with."

The lights in the bedroom engage automatically, the vents whirring softly as the heat kicks in, sensing their presence. Kylo pulls him to a stop in front of the bed, reaching down to undo his belt, and says, "You're not going down there, Hux." He doesn't add,  _ "be reasonable" _ , probably because he remembers the last time he tried to reason with Hux on one of his rants. (If anyone had questioned what he was doing with all the ice packs he ordered brought to his quarters, they didn't say so.) He pushes the jodhpurs off Hux's hips and to the floor.

"Damnit, Ren," Hux growls and pushes ineffectively at Kylo's bicep, toeing out of his boots and stepping out of the pool of fabric before he can trip over it and humiliate himself even further, "I'm trying to rant. Stop trying to distract me."

Kylo asks, "Why, is it working?"

"You are incorrigible."

Kylo smiles that strange lopsided smile of his, the scar slicing his face crumpling a bit over the bridge of his nose. Then he becomes serious, reaching up to rest both hands on Hux's chest, thumbs pressing lightly into his dog tags. His eyes search Hux's.

"Look, Hux... You don't have to go down there. Just hire some more men. You have nothing to prove to Snoke."

And of course, that's exactly the wrong thing to say to Hux at the present moment. Hux hardens his face, tilting his chin up slightly to look down on Kylo, as much as that's possible. "I'm going. Tomorrow."

Kylo shakes his head, "Stubborn--"

"And you're coming with me."

Kylo blinks, "No,", then raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because," Hux answers, stepping closer and reaching up behind Kylo's head to tug at the hair tie until it comes loose, dark hair cascading down to curtain his face, "Someone's going to have to shovel all that dirt."

Kylo gives him a flat look, turning away from him and slipping his tank over his head. Hux takes a moment to admire the way the muscles shift in his back, dimpling just above the waistband of his breeches, skin discolored with old scars and new. The knot of twisted skin marring his side is still pink, not quite completely bacta-healed, and Hux knows it still pains Kylo sometimes. Kylo kicks off his boots haphazardly and flops down onto Hux's bed, flipping onto his back. Hux follows more slowly, shifting in under the covers with a frustrated sigh and staring up at the ceiling. 

They're both quiet for a moment, the silence broken only by the soft whisper of sheets as they shift around to get comfortable. 

"I'm not going down there," Kylo insists while beating one of Hux's pillows into submission with a fist. The bed dips as he stuffs it behind his back and reclines against it. "I have better things to do."

"Such as?" Hux asks, skeptically, "You're stuck on this ship, same as the rest of us."

Kylo doesn't answer, crossing his arms over the black sheet covering his broad chest. It doesn't look like he's about to change his mind, but that's nothing a little persuasion can't fix. Hux isn't stupid enough to go down to Oricon without protection, not with the amount of mysterious deaths that have been reported from the site in the past month. He's not willing to take a squad of Stormtroopers, either - if there happens to be even the slightest grain of truth in Thanisson's ramblings about curses and magic, he'd much rather have a Force user at his back. He trusts Kylo with his life, and with more important things. And besides, it will do Kylo some good to get off the ship as well: Hux doesn't think his blaster can handle being any more thoroughly or frequently cleaned without simply disintegrating in his hand the next time he tries to use it.

So he sits up, bracing one hand on Kylo's arm as he leans closer for a kiss. It's soft, at first, gentle, and Hux can feel the exact moment Kylo gives into him: he melts against him, becomes pliant, and one hand pulls free from between them to graze Hux's back lightly, pushing in under his tank to rest lightly on his skin. And then it becomes more impassioned, Hux crawling over Kylo so he can straddle his thighs, his mouth opening eagerly for Kylo's tongue.

Eventually, they break and pull apart, breathing hard. Hux rests his forehead against Kylo's, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of him against his chest and the breadth of him between his thighs. Kylo smiles slightly, his lips moving against Hux's as he murmurs, "Still not going down there."

Hux smirks, dragging his hand over Kylo's chest before crawling his fingers toward his abdomen and slipping them into the waistband of his breeches.

_ We'll see. _

 


	3. Tomb Raiders

The shuttle rumbles to life, the thrum of its engines droning into the soles of Hux’s feet, right through the thick rubber treads of his grip boots. He shifts a bit uncomfortably in his seat, fidgeting with the safety belts keeping him securely strapped to the bulkhead. They cross diagonally over his chest, pinching into the skin of his neck. The utility belt of his planetside uniform is digging into his lower back, compact tools and emergency oxypacks and long-range comms each pressing its distinct outline into the soft tissue of his waist. Over his shoulders is draped the torso part of a suit of intellisteel armor, of the kind ground crew usually wear around dig sites. 

The armor is brand new, the top half of an excavation suit that had been waiting for him when he arrived in the hangar, and the lightweight plating digs into his spine uncomfortably. As he shuffles around in his seat, he can feel the armor inching over his shoulders, molding itself to the contours of his chest and spine: the intellisteel is still “learning” the shape of his body, deforming itself over the planes of his torso and sinking into the dips of his collarbones and clicking into the hollows of his spine. Once it has molded to his form, it will become an almost impenetrable shell, fitted so closely to his body that it will be virtually indistinguishable from his own skin. Until then, the crawling, shifting armor is something to be endured; in Hux’s case, through gritted teeth and increasingly agitated fidgeting, and he finds himself again relieved that he chose to forgo the rest of the excavation armor.

The stomach- and leg plating lies discarded over a crate in the hangar: he’s not really expecting anything as exciting as a cave-in. Some kind of attack by the ground crew is far more likely, if Hux is right and their talk of curses and mysterious deaths is all some kind of hoax. He wouldn’t put it past them to have set this entire thing up as a trap, luring him in just to ambush him. For what reason, he couldn’t say, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. He’s strapped his blaster holster to his thigh, just in case.

He looks up at the heavy clang of steps coming up the shuttle’s metal ramp. Kylo braces one hand against the upper rim of the door and ducks into the hull. He’s wearing the same black tank and breeches from the day before. His hair is pulled back messily, a few black strands escaping to curl around the scar splitting his face. 

“You came,” Hux says, in lieu of a greeting. 

“Several times. Thanks,” Kylo winks at him as he drops down into the seat next to Hux. 

Hux rolls his eyes slightly, and ignores the flashes of memory from the night before, when he ‘motivated’ Kylo to join him on Oricon in bed, over his desk, and, later, in the refresher. He wasn’t sure it would actually work: Hux is fairly skilled in the arts of manipulation, and used to getting what he wants. But there are few creatures in the Galaxy as stubborn as Kylo Ren, and none as likely to oppose Hux, often with the sole purpose of irritating him.

Kylo leans over to bump him lightly, his bare arm grazing Hux’s plated one; no protective armor, no emergency oxypacks, not even a handheld torch. The only thing he’s brought is his lightsaber, hilt strapped into its usual place on his hip. 

Hux leans away from him a bit, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s your armor?”

Kylo shrugs. “Don’t need it.”

“Really? Not even a torch?”

“No.” Kylo slouches down low in the seat, propping his feet up on the opposite bench across the narrow walkway and crossing them at the ankle. 

Hux gives him a Look. “Unless the Force gives you nightvision, or you’ve otherwise acquired the chiropteran skill of echolocation, how are you planning on seeing anything down there?”

Kylo casts a sidelong glance at him. “You have a light, don’t you?”

As a matter of fact, Hux has several. That is beside the point. “Typical,” he mutters, shaking his head. Kylo is just slightly too wide to fit into the seat; his shoulder and arm press into Hux’s, uncomfortably warm. Their thighs brush. He could have chosen any of the other empty seats in the small, windowless landfall transport. He and Hux are its only occupants, apart from the droid pilot sequestered away in the cockpit, hidden behind a draping of plasto-canvas netting usually used to secure crates of tools or rations or whatever else the shuttle happened to be hauling, empty now and tacked to the hull, out of the way. 

The shuttle’s ramp hisses, steam billowing from the pneumatic arms as they retract, sealing the doors. The shuttle vibrates, lifting off with stomach-turning inertia before breaking through the Finalizer’s atmo-shield and setting off for Oricon. Landfall transports such as this one are designed for short-distance travel, sacrificing comfort for practicality, and as it rumbles its way towards the planet’s cloud-smudged atmosphere, Hux finds himself missing the roomy leather seats and wide viewports of his personal shuttle, or even the tall-backed personnel trestles on Kylo’s Upsilon. The lack of viewports in the transport means there isn’t even anything to look at as a distraction, apart from the opposite wall of the hull - dull grey durasteel, marred with black tracks and scratches marking the passing of many storage crates - and the tips of Kylo’s boots, tapping together lightly to some obscure rhythm only he understands.

Hux doesn’t realize he’s been fidgeting until Kylo puts a hand on his thigh to still his leg from bouncing. Kylo meets his look with a half-smile, on the opposite side of his scar, and says, “You look good.”

Hux gives him a flat look. 

Kylo insists, “You do. Seeing you out of uniform… does things to me.”

Under the dark grey plating of the excavation armour, Hux wears a sturdy black planetside jumpsuit, cut at the waist by the utility belt and tucked into his calf-length grip boots. It doesn’t fit quite as snugly as his officer’s uniform, and the lack of material around his neck makes him feel strangely naked. The gloves are bulkier than he’s used to, and he’s not quite sure what all the pockets are for. He doesn’t find the suit particularly attractive, and tells Kylo so.

It doesn’t serve quite as the deterrent he’d hoped it would: Kylo’s hand starts making its way steadily up Hux’s thigh, from where it had been resting on his knee. He bats it away. “We’re working.”

“Fine,” Kylo pulls his hand away, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes, head tilting back to rest against the bulkhead, “But when we get back I’m having you in that uniform.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you know how many zips you’d have to undo to even get to my cock?”

Kylo snorts. Hux continues, “Not to mention all these armour clasps and the utility belt, which, by the way, remind me to look into having these retrofitted to the new Stormtrooper armour. They’re a bit lighter, and I think the fittings could be adjusted for--”

“Hux.” Kylo gives him a look that clearly means, ‘no one cares about your utility belt.’ He looks slightly smug about it, too, as if he knows he’s probably the only person in the Galaxy who could interrupt Hux like that and live to tell the tale. He’s right, and he knows how much it infuriates Hux, and there seems to be no end to the amount of satisfaction this gives him. Hux huffs and crosses his arms, glowering at the opposite wall and reminding himself that there are regulations against physically assaulting one’s fellow officers, however tempting. 

The ensuing silence is interrupted when the shuttle breaks atmosphere, shuddering slightly as it sinks through Oricon’s roiling cloud cover. It settles with a slight jolt on the rough terrain, engines whining as they power down. Hux is relieved to release the catches on the safety belt and get up, blood rushing back into his legs and making them tingle slightly. He stretches out, twisting his torso lightly from side to side to test the intellisteel armour. It’s molded to his shape satisfactorily, and he hardly notices it anymore as he moves. 

A panel hidden underneath his seat slides open when he nudges it with the toe of his boot, revealing a large, dark canvas bag and a square plastisteel container, filled with protective foam packaging. As he still has no idea what the artefacts they are looking for even are, he has to hope the case will be big enough to carry whatever it is back to the shuttle. Slinging the bag over his head so that its strap crosses his chest diagonally, he heads for the door. Kylo has already lowered the ramp and is waiting for him outside.

The first thing Hux notices is the smell. Sulfur bathes the surface of the planet in a repugnant haze almost thick enough to cut. He wrinkles his nose. Thanisson assured him the air was breathable. What he hadn’t included was a workable definition of the word. A thick, whitish fog blankets the surface, mirroring the turbid sky and rendering everything further than a few feet away almost invisible. 

A dusting of fine, grey, sand-like pebbles crunches under his boots as he steps off the ramp and onto the ground. The sound of his footsteps is muffled, seemingly swallowed by the fog. The pebbles shift slightly beneath his feet as he walks, making for unsteady going. All around them is the hiss of volcanic rifts and the deep, hidden bubbling of magma. Hux consults the location tracker on the display panel set into the forearm of his suit, then sets off in the direction of the dig site, approximately five hundred metres west of where they set down. Kylo falls into step beside him, peering into the fog as they pass large, blackrock structures, fading in and out of the mist like ships at sea. As they near the excavation site, a tall, make-shift structure of vertical steel columns and horizontal beams pierces through the heavy smog, thrusting high into the air in the distance.

They’re met about halfway by two Stormtroopers cradling blaster rifles in their arms, and the foreman of the excavation site: an old Vodran with a bad limp and most of the spikes around his eye ridges chipped off. Siran Videk. Thanisson’s reports painted him as a cranky old man with a bad attitude, but an astute archaeologist and a fair leader. He towers over the Stormtroopers, an old, scratched datapad shoved under one arm and a pick-axe slung over the other shoulder. The Finalizer will have let them know of Hux’s arrival.

Hux doesn’t stop for greetings, passing by them and continuing his clipped march toward the dig site. “Report,” he orders, at no one specifically.

“Excavation’s at a standstill, Gen’ral,” the Vodran rumbles behind him. His voice is deep and grating, like rocks grinding together. He turns to follow Hux, limp more pronounced as he struggles to keep up. “We’re the last of the dig team on site.”

“Progress?”

“Well, they uncovered the site early this morning, sir, ‘bout fifty-six clicks down. Big, round doors; maybe some kind of temple. All these strange markin’s no one can read.”

As the old foreman comes up beside them, Kylo asks, “What’s inside?”

“Who knows?” Videk shrugs, leather overalls creaking over his shoulders. “Ain’t been able to get through the damn doors. Tried lasers, battering rams, even set some disruptor bombs ‘gainst the damn things. But the slugs went off way before they were s‘posed to. Killed five of my best men.”

“The incompetence of your explosives technicians,” Hux interjects, “is one of the many issues that shall be addressed when the First Order finalizes your team’s payment for this job, master Videk, you can rest assured of that.”

“My team are good men, sir,” Videk says, a hint of injured pride in his voice, “They know what they’re doing. Ain’t no one stands a chance against that curse, though.”

This again. Hux turns a scowl on the Vodran. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that a curse killed your men. Listen to yourself.”

“No, you listen to me, Gen’ral.” Videk slows to a stop, gesturing toward the excavation site with the hilt of his pickaxe. “This place _is_ cursed. You go down there, you die.”

As if on cue, a peal of thunder rolls ominously overhead. Hux feels like yelling at it for good measure. Instead, he rounds on Videk with a vicious glare. He’s had enough of hearing about curses. “The only thing that’s cursed around here is my luck for hiring the most spineless, cowardly amateurs this side of the Unknown Regions.”

Videk’s large, completely black eyes stare at Hux unblinkingly, the hard and bony ridges of his face unreadable. Then he holds the pickaxe to the side, keeping Hux’s gaze as he drops it to the ground. It lands with a muffled thud, kicking up a cloud of fine, grey dust.

He says, “I’m done here.” and turns his back on them, limping off. Hux watches him until he disappears into the mist, fists clenched. When the fog has swallowed Videk completely and no trace of him can be seen anymore, Kylo reaches out from beside Hux to put a hand on his shoulder, and deadpans, “Good job handling that.”

“We don’t need him,” Hux grumbles, turning back towards the excavation site.

“No, you’re right,” Kylo says lightly, sticking his hands into his pockets as he starts walking again, “It’s not like he had the access codes to the shaft elevators or anything. Good thing you’re not deathly afraid of heights, or climbing down fifty-six clicks using magno-grips would be a harrowing experience for you.”

There’s no way Videk will have been the only one with the access codes. The First Order has protocols for that kind of thing, and Hux is sure that, as the ranking officer, he’ll have clearance to override whatever authentication may be required to operate the elevators going down into the excavated shaft. If Kylo is in any way affected by the glare he directs at him, he doesn’t show it. (The Stormtroopers, however, seem to suddenly find themselves walking a few paces apart from him, inching steadily away from him and Hux.)

The excavation site opens up before them like a large, black tear in the ground. Up close, the metal structure they’d seen from the transport is massive; soaring perforated beams wider than Hux’s armspan gouging into the black earth, arranged around the fissure at regular intervals. From its horizontal beams is strung a complex net of cabling and wires that disappear into the hole, swallowed by darkness. Four hydrolifts, walled by safety bars and transparisteel, sit on the rim, dark and quiet.

The excavation site looks appropriately abandoned. Empty crates litter the ground, some tipped on their sides. Discarded hydroshovels and fusion torches form a haphazard trail around the shaft, connecting the access consoles set up at intervals around the rim. The constant hiss of steam rising from the volcanic rifts nearby seems overly loud, the silence shrouding the dig all the more pronounced for the evidence left behind by the crew that had until recently been working there. The only other sound apart from their gravelly footsteps is the soft rumble of an 11-17 mining droid, trundling slowly along the far rim of the fissure, still carting away debris.

Hux lifts the canvas bag over his shoulder, tossing it to the ground and stepping up to the nearest access console. Wiping the dust from it with the side of his palm, he keys in his command code.

A tiny red light and a soft, admonishing beep inform him that he is not, in fact, authorized to override Videk’s access codes.

Glowering at the console, he tries it again, for good measure. It beeps at him again. Without giving Kylo the chance to say anything, he growls, crouching down in front of it. A panel set close to the base of the console opens easily after a few hard tugs, revealing a mass of tangled wires inside. Hux tugs off his gloves, holding them by the fingers between his teeth, and runs his fingers over the wires, parting them. There. A small, green wire, connecting to the console’s main memory bank. Keeping hold of it between two fingers, he frees a small utility knife from one of the pouches in his bag and carefully severs the wire. Reaching up, he feels around the roof of the console until his fingers meet a slightly thicker loop of wire. He pulls at it until it pops loose, then slices back the rubber to reveal the copper wire inside. Carefully, he twines the separate wires together. That should do it.

Straightening up, he wipes his palms on his thighs before tugging his gloves back on. This time, when he jabs at the panel, the little light turns blue, and a message appears on the screen, blinking at Hux:

“ _Reset access codes, Y/N?_ ”

He smirks, bypassing the codes, and enters the controls for the elevator. The lights of the boxlift straight ahead of him flare to life. High above them, the elevator’s pneumonic servers swivel into place, echoing with a metallic clang.

He meets Kylo’s eyes across the console with a smug smile. Kylo puts his hands on his hips and just shakes his head at Hux, nudging a nearby hydroshovel with one foot as he turns toward the boxlift.

The Stormtroopers take up position next to the access console as Hux grabs his canvas bag under one arm, walking toward the elevator. He’s not entirely sure what they’re intending  to guard; the excavation site is clearly abandoned. The horrid, pervasive smell of sulphur is their only company.

Kylo follows him into the lift, sliding the bars shut behind them with a rattling clang. The display panel next to the door blinks to life, showing a diagram of the shaft in clear white wireframe outlines on a bright blue background. The box-lift sits at the top, a tiny, white square. Hux presses his fore- and middle fingers on it, sliding them all the way down to the bottom of the shaft. The little white box trails fading, staggered squares behind it as it follows his fingers. The lift shudders, and starts to drop.

He jumps only slightly when Kylo’s hand comes to rest on his arse, his broad chest pressing on Hux’s back as he hooks his chin over his shoulder. “That was hot,” he murmurs. 

“Showing a basic understanding of electrical engineering isn’t ‘hot’.” Hux tries to dig into Kylo’s ribs with his elbow. 

“It is when you do it.” Kylo shifts just out of reach, his other hand sliding around and under Hux’s ribs, between the hard ridges of the armour covering his chest and the slightly bulging pouches of the utility belt.

“Get off,” Hux tells him, not quite squirming.

Kylo doesn’t budge, squeezing Hux lightly. “You like it.” (He’s right).

Hux writhes a bit until he manages to twist around in Kylo’s arms and face him with a half-admonishing “we don’t have time for this.”

“We have time,” Kylo counters, “And there’s no one else here.”

He leans in to kiss Hux, and though Kylo Ren might be horrendous at a great many areas of life, Hux has come to learn that kissing is not one of them. He melts into it, eyes slipping shut as Kylo’s lips pulse softly against his, warm and welcoming. A large thigh presses insistently at his legs until he spreads them enough to let it slip between, and he’s not sure if it’s some extension of the Force or perhaps just his own feelings toward Kylo, but the air seems to spark around them, tingling over the skin of his cheeks and down the back of his neck. It’s slow, sweet, and leaves Hux feeling mildly weak at the knees.

Kylo pulls Hux’s lower lip lightly between his teeth, then pauses to breathe, leaning away with a slight smile when Hux chases after him for another kiss. When his hand comes down to lightly cup Hux’s crotch, it breaks the spell. Regardless of how much time they have, there are certain things he just isn’t prepared to do in an elevator. He catches Kylo’s wrist, pulling it away. “No.”

Kylo looks like he’s about to protest, but he’s interrupted when the lift jolts slightly, a soft ping alerting them to the fact that they’ve arrived at the bottom of the shaft.

Hux presses his palms against Kylo’s chest to push him away, straightening his jumpsuit with a slightly awkward cough. Kylo looks unperturbed. Hux slings his bag and its contents over his shoulder again, and pulls the bars aside, stepping off the lift and into the darkness. “Come on, then.”

The light from the elevator box casts a circle of pure white on the ground, revealing the same fine, dark grey sandy pebbles that cover the surface. Where it ends, blackness swallows the light completely, like an almost tangible wall surrounding them. The air down here is even more stifling, if possible, than the thick foggy atmosphere on the surface, and the close proximity to the underground magma deposits makes it uncomfortably hot.

Hux wipes a small trail of sweat from his forehead, lifting his arm to key in the lighting commands on his suit’s wrist panel. Fluorescent blue light flows like bright liquid into the transparent conduits set between the joints and around every curve of his suit, illuminating a wider area than the white circle they stand in. Another command activates the beam-light on his chest. It swivels around with him as he moves. He shares a glance with Kylo as he comes up next to him, then takes a deep breath. They set off into the darkness.

Hux’s suit’s lights reveals more tools discarded on the ground among a rubble of crumbled rock and mineral fragments. These start to appear in Hux’s circle of light less and less, and as the shaft tapers down into a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor, unevenly hewn into the stone, they disappear completely. The air is close, claustrophobically so, heavy and hot. Hux trails one hand along the rough wall as they progress. The lack of stone debris and tools on the ground suggests that this corridor existed before the dig crew arrived, revealed by their quarrying rather than created by it. The only sound is the scuff of their boots and their heavy breaths mingling together in the silence. Even the constant hiss of steam and ominous bubbling of underground magma seems quiet, here. Hux’s lights cast a wavering path for them to follow, but the almost solid wall of darkness ahead of them makes him uneasy. He keeps an eye on the ground, making his way forward step by careful step. 

He’s more relieved than he’d care to admit when they come to the end of the narrow corridor. Their path is blocked by a large, circular door, set so smoothly into the rock it’s almost impossible to tell where the natural stone ends and the door begins. It glints eerily in the light from Hux’s suit, seeming almost reflective, its surface smooth and burnished in comparison to the volcanic rock surrounding it. Flowing around the edge of the door are strange markings, gouged deeply into the stone. It’s no language Hux has seen before. In fact, he’s not even sure it’s a language at all. The longer he looks at it, the more uncomfortable it makes him: the scratched etchings seem to move, starting to waver and swirl lightly as he watches. The hair on the back of his neck stands up.

He tears his eyes away from the markings, noting the blackened scorch marks on the walls beside them as his chest beam glances over them. If Videk’s story were to be believed, not even disruptor bombs could move these doors. That doesn’t leave them with many other options for getting in. Hux puts his hands on his hips, tilting his head back to look up at the doors. If he’s to be honest, he’s at a bit of a loss. 

Lifting a hand to wipe another trail of sweat off his brow, he sighs. “Well. I suppose we can’t just knock politely and ask to be let in.”

Kylo doesn’t respond. Hux turns back to look at him, only to find him staring at the door with a small frown, a kind of strange, entranced expression on his face. Hux takes half a step in his direction. “...Kylo?”

No answer, but Hux becomes suddenly aware of a strange, sibilant sound, like many soft whispers at the very edge of his hearing. There was no clear point he could discern at which the sound started: it’s as if it’s been there all along, and he’s only just noticed it. 

“Kylo.”

His skin crawls. He can feel his heartbeat accelerating. Kylo is staring fixedly at the doors from beneath his brow, head tilted down. His pupils are blown. He stands completely motionless, as if he’s not even breathing. Around them, the whispers grow louder. Hux can almost make out words, but never quite whole ones, sounds that are familiar but always just slightly wrong, syllables not quite in the right order, consonants stretched unnaturally long. And it’s suddenly cold, Hux’s breath misting white in front of him. He shivers, and takes another step toward Kylo, raising his voice. “Ren.”

Kylo sways forward, head dipping. He blinks a few times, turning his head to look around, disoriented. When his eyes land on Hux, he seems to remember where he is, settling back and reaching up to run a hand through his hair.

Hux frowns at him. “Is… everything alright?” His voice seems overly loud, and he realises the whispers have stopped. There was no clear point at which the sound ended. It didn’t fade away, didn’t change pitch; there was no clear absence of sound where sound had been present. The whispers are like a memory, an impression of something once heard long ago, that exists only in the duration of time it’s remembered. Hux can almost believe he imagined it. But something tells him he didn’t.

Kylo is staring at him blankly, as if he doesn’t understand the question. The light from Hux’s suit casts strange, skull-like shadows on his face. Hux gestures at the door and prompts, “Do you know what these markings mean?”

Kylo closes his eyes, then shakes his head, and seems to come back to himself. “No. No, I don’t. But… they seem familiar somehow.” He takes a few slow steps in the direction of the doors, brows drawn. “Like I’ve seen them somewhere before.”

Hux’s senses are still tingling with the same uncomfortable feeling from before, and he’s suddenly not sure anymore that this is a good idea. Kylo lifts one hand, reaching toward the grey stone. It might be a trick of the directional light and shifting shadows, but it looks almost like the air between Kylo’s hand and the door is shimmering, the markings behind it distorting slightly as if seen through waves of heat. Hux clears his throat and starts, “Perhaps we should wai--”

But Kylo has already laid his palm flat against the stone, eyes closed beneath a frown. Hux starts forward with the intention of pulling him away, but his movements seem strangely slow, limbs moving as if through thick liquid, heavy and laboured. He’s too late. As his fingers graze Kylo’s shoulder, the ground shudders, pebbles raining from the walls. A crack splits open exactly down the center of the doors, and they slowly start to grate open. A deep groan reverberates down the corridor, echoing into the darkness. A gust of wind spits a dusty cloud from the crack. 

Hux waves his hand in front of his face a bit, fighting a sneeze. “How did you...?”

Kylo tilts his head back to look up at where the top edges of the door disappear into darkness, hand still outstretched into the suddenly empty space. Then he turns slowly to look at Hux, and shrugs a little, helplessly. “The Force. I guess.” He looks as puzzled as Hux feels.

“You guess.” Hux repeats a bit sarcastically, crossing his arms.

The doors grate and rumble and groan, swinging into the dark and gaping mouth of whatever lies behind, before eventually settling flush against the stone walls. The billowing dust slowly settles, a cloud of fine grey powder drifting to the ground in the path of Hux’s beam light. The deep silence of the hidden world beneath the earth settles over everything. A rivulet of sweat trickles down the exact middle of Hux’s back.

They glance at each other, and then into the chamber: a deep and cavernous maw, dark and gaping into the void before them. The air smells dry, arid, and tinged with something almost sickly sweet, on the edge of rotten. Everything inside Hux is telling him to turn away, to go back to the shuttle, to get as far away from here as he can. But the Supreme Leader is waiting, and Hux is already on thin enough ice after Starkiller Base. He can’t fail Snoke again. He won’t allow himself to. So he steels himself, turning back to Kylo. “Shall we?”

He heads inside the doors without allowing himself enough time to second-guess his decision, and without waiting for Kylo to answer, trusting him to follow. The ground beneath his boots changes from the shifting, gravelly sand of Oricon’s surface to hard stone, solid if rough and uneven terrain. His suit lights cast a perfect round circle of illumination around him, catching Kylo’s right side where he walks beside him, playing over the craggy ridges of the scar on his shoulder and shrouding his left side in shadow. It doesn’t escape Hux’s notice that one hand rests lightly on the hilt of his lightsaber, ready to draw, and he wonders if Kylo feels as uneasy as he does.

As they both step over the threshold of the doorway, a dim, yellow light starts to glow from somewhere, illuminating the room from some hidden source. It reveals a chamber as large at least as the Finalizer’s hangar. Rifts of jagged black rock hew the walls into cracks and fissures, from some of which steam puffs quietly. The upper limits of the chamber disappear into shadow where the strange lighting fades to black, but by the way sound echoes in the chamber, Hux judges it must go almost all the way to the surface. They find themselves standing on a wide ledge of rock surrounding the chamber like a shelf built right into the wall. Only a scarce few feet in front of them is a steep drop, swallowing the earth into deep darkness below. And the sickly sweet smell is stronger here, thick and syrupy and decidedly underlaid with decay.

Hux slowly reaches up and switches off his suit’s lights, staring around the cavern.

The light in the chamber has no definable source; instead it seems to be coming from the walls themselves somehow, seeping out of the rocky crevasses along with the steam and smoke from the volcano. A narrow bridge of uneven grey rock connects the ledge to an island structure, floating on an unsteady pillar of stone in the middle of the cavern. Deep gouges like teeth marks have crumbled out of the pillar, giving it the appearance of lilting slightly to one side. On the island stands an old and decaying structure of stone, the skeletal remains of what was once a large, domed cupola, ringed with once-sturdy columns that are now little more than bony remnants of arching stone, like the atrophied fingers of a hand clutching onto the vaulting canopy overhead. Clouds of thick steam rise steadily from the canyon surrounding the bridge, shrouding the ruins in misty white.

Movement draws Hux’s attention. Kylo has started walking slowly toward the dome, his posture more slouched than usual, eyes staring fixedly ahead. He seems almost drawn forward, inexorably pulled toward the ruins by some invisible force. His boots leave heavy, clear footprints in dust that has remained undisturbed for millennia. He steps onto the bridge without hesitation, paying no attention to the unsteady and extremely narrow rock surface, walking forward with either confidence, or carelessness. (Where Kylo Ren is concerned, Hux has come to learn, there is often little to no distinction between the two).

Hux does not find himself with the same urge. He inches forward, looking down over the side of the ledge nervously. The bottom of the canyon is lost to shadow, making it hard to judge the distance to it: it’s either just out of the range of the light, the worst case scenario in which a fall would leave him with several broken bones but alive, or it’s a very long way down, in which case he’d have enough time to regret all his life choices up until this point before meeting a quick, if messy end. Either way, he’s never been a fan of high places (or low places with lower drops), and the breadth of the causeway (just wide enough for both of his boots lined up next to each other), is not filling him with confidence. He swallows dryly, and slides one foot carefully onto the bridge.

Kylo is already inside the dome. He stands in the center of it and turns in a slow circle, eyes trailing over the stone. When he calls out, “It’s a tomb,”, his voice echoes in the chamber, becoming distorted where it trickles over the decaying rock.

“Lovely,” Hux mutters to himself, still gathering up the courage to take the next step. He repeats a steady mantra of _Don’t look down, don’t look down_ in his head. (Of course, the only thing this accomplishes is to actually  _increase_ the urge to look down.)

“There’s some kind of dais,” Kylo continues, tilting his head to the side and peering at something hidden behind one of the columns, out of Hux’s view, “And these… masks…” He trails off, disappearing behind the stone. His voice carries to Hux on the steam, detached and directionless. “They’re beautiful.” He sounds entranced. “I can feel them in the Force, Hux. They’re old. Powerful. And very, very evil.”

“That sounds right up Snoke’s alley,” Hux grumbles. He takes another shaky step.

Kylo appears from behind the crumbling column, coming to stand on the edge of the island and regarding Hux with his hands on his hips. “If you’re scared, I could always carry you across. On my back, like a little child.”

Hux levels him with a Look. 

Kylo smirks. “Or maybe you’d prefer princess-style?”

If nothing else, Hux is determined to make it across the bridge only because his fist can’t reach far enough to punch Kylo in the stomach from here. Hands clenched, he picks up the pace, fixing Kylo with an unwavering, steely glare, eyes only flickering down to check that he’s still in the center of the thin strip of rock. He keeps his steps quick, each foot precisely in front of the other until he steps onto the island next to him. Kylo dodges the punch that was meant for his arm. Hux resists the urge to stamp on his foot instead.

Pausing just inside the first decaying arch, Hux leans down, resting his hands on his knees while he gets his breathing under control. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, heart pounding loudly in his ears. Not having heard him approach, he nearly jumps out of his skin when Kylo claps him on the back lightly. 

Hux straightens with a scowl in his direction, then turns to look around. The inside of the cupola slopes down into a shallow bowl, an upside-down mirror of the broken dome overhead. Into the incline are set five large rectangles of darker stone, arrayed around the circle at even intervals. At the head of each is the same scrawling and scratchy markings they found on the doors, etched roughly into the stone. 

Graves.

Kylo walks slowly between the graves toward the opposite end of the cupola, where a large dais rises from the debris of a ruined column. Hux follows, more slowly, shivering lightly inside the suit. It’s still cold, the scent of death thick enough to choke on here, making it hard to breathe. The skin at the back of his neck crawls with unease. 

He stops next to Kylo, in front of the podium. The base of the dais is inscribed with more of the strange scratchy script, crawling around and around the square podium like lines of twigs etched into the stone. The right side of the base has crumbled under the weight of time into decay, spilling rock and black ground onto the floor. The heavy stone tablet once set atop the perfectly level roof of the dais tilts into the gap, its other end jutting up at an awkward angle.

On top of the dais rest the masks Kylo mentioned, gold and crimson and roughly the size of a human face, bearing no resemblance to the design of any culture Hux has come across before. Five have slid down the canting shelf, their edges overlapping and pressing onto each other. Another lies on the spilled rock of the podium, vacant eyeholes staring overhead. The masks glint in the dim light, each unique and vaguely disturbing somehow in its design, and all strangely pristine. In fact, not a single mark of age or bit of rust, nor one scratch or smudge mars their surfaces. Not even dust clings to them, as if their golden veneer is protected by some kind of force field. Their surfaces are chiseled with twisting swirls that distort Hux’s reflection, and, like the markings on the doors and graves, make him nauseous when he looks at them too long. 

There is no mistake: these are the artefacts Snoke sent them to find.

Hux bites his lip, and reaches out slowly toward the mask that has half-slipped onto the crumbled side of the dais. He hesitates for a second, remembering Videk’s words: “ _You go down there, you die_.” 

But he did not come all this way just to leave without Snoke’s artefacts. Curse or no, he has to retrieve these masks: his standing in the First Order depends on it. 

Hand shaking only slightly, he closes the distance and grabs the mask, lifting it off the ground and to his chest in one quick motion, not quite cringing as he glances around, almost fearfully. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting: perhaps for the ground to start shaking or the cave to start collapsing, or perhaps for the walls to start slowly moving, closing in on them like a scene from the old adventure holos he watched as a child. 

Nothing happens.

Steam rises gently from the hidden canyon below, infused with the strange yellow light seeping from the walls, and the sweetly rotten air clogs his throat and snags his breath.

He exhales lightly in relief, and looks down at the mask in his hands, turning it slightly from side to side. It’s cold to the touch, and strangely light, though it appears to be made of solid gold. Deep etched ridges swirl around its forehead and into the hollows of its cheeks, cresting over the raised planes of its cheekbones and flowing together where the mouth hole should have been. There are no discernable catches or hooks or anything to keep it in place over someone’s face. And when he twists it around just _so_ , the edges of every ridge and swirl turn blood red, a deep shade of crimson that seems to spill into the grooves almost like liquid. The eye holes stare blankly. Something whispers behind him.

Beside him, Kylo is kneeling on the uneven rock in front of the dais, another mask held in both hands. He’s turned toward Hux, frozen in place, and is staring fixedly at something right behind him. His eyes are wide, white showing all around the shrunken pupils, mouth twisted down with something Hux would call fear if it were anyone else. The whispers and scratches and softly wailing voices swirl all around them, and it’s suddenly the only thing he can hear, filling his ears and prickling over the skin of his cheeks. The hair on his forearms stands up, apprehension trickling down his spine. Slowly, inch by inch, he turns to look behind him.

Nothing.

Just the empty, mist-shrouded and decaying columns of the cupola, and the dark scoop of the stone floor housing the five graves. The strange yellow light from the outside walls is a steady and comforting presence. Hux blinks a few times, and turns back to Kylo. He is still staring at the same spot behind Hux, as if in a trance.

[](https://orig00.deviantart.net/ec57/f/2017/346/8/c/the_dread_masks_by_zaera_d-dbwjok5.jpg)

“Right,” Hux says slowly, his voice thick, “It is _definitely_ time to get out of here.”

He slips the satchel over his shoulder, undoing the clasps and tucking the top flap back before unlatching the box inside. Opening the lid, he carefully slips his mask on its side into the slot in the foam casing. The remaining masks on the dais go carefully, but quickly into the other slots as well, sliding between the sturdy foam partitions smoothly. 

When he’s done, he turns to Kylo, and reaches out slowly to take the mask he still holds between his hands. Kylo doesn’t respond. He’s clutching the mask tightly enough for his knuckles to whiten, muscles cording in his forearms. And he’s still staring at that same spot, seemingly at thin air. Hux closes his gloved hand around the mask, and tugs a few times. It doesn’t budge. He pulls harder, and eventually braces one foot against the dais for leverage, wrenching the mask out of Kylo’s grasp. 

The moment the mask leaves his hands, Kylo blinks a few times and looks around, mildly dazed.

Hux slots the last mask into the box and closes it, watching Kylo from below his lashes as he fastens the clasps of the bag and swings it over his head, tucking it under his arm. Kylo has his eyes squeezed shut now, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. 

Everything about this place fills Hux with an unrelenting sense of foreboding, from the stone tombs to the smell of rot to the unnaturally clean and smooth masks now resting in their container against his hip. He’d never admit it to anyone, of course, least of all to Kylo, but he’s scared. What’s worse, he doesn’t know _why_ ; the engineer and the scientist and the strategist in him all rail with a hundred different reasons this place can’t possibly _be_ cursed. And yet his survival instinct is screaming that they’re wrong, to _run_.

And so he does.

“Come. We’re leaving,” he orders, straightening up. Kylo doesn’t immediately respond, so Hux  grabs his wrist with another “come on!”, and drags him up. It turns out that the compulsion to escape this place is strong enough to override even his fear of heights, and he tugs Kylo across the narrow bridge quickly, keeping his eyes on the dark, gaping circle of the doors just on the other side of the ledge, leading to freedom. The whispers rise around them, ebbing and flowing like an echoing ocean of sound. They roar in Hux’s ears, pressing down on his eyes and throat and lungs. 

They burst through the doors and into the darkness of the corridor outside, and Hux lets go of Kylo, gasping for breath and sagging against the wall. Everything goes quiet. Fumbling for the switch on his wrist panel, he engages the suit’s lights again, sighing slightly with relief when the sterile, fluorescent light floods over the dark crags and wrinkles of the rock corridor rearing up beside them. His heart is pounding, sweat freezing on his skin under the suit. His only thought is to get back to the shuttle, get off this planet, get back to the Finalizer and back to safety. 

Against his hip, the satchel containing the masks feels oddly heavy.

 


	4. Don't turn around

It’s late by the Finalizer’s standards when the small landfall transport breaks through the atmoshield, sending a shimmer of hexagonal patterns rippling through the blue energy field. Most of the ship’s staff and crew are already sequestered away in their quarters, or otherwise find themselves whiling away their off-duty hours in rec rooms or mess halls or holosim training chambers. The shuttle settles precisely into its landing bay with a small shudder, engines whining and steam hissing from the airlock as it slides open. The ramp hasn’t quite made it all the way to the ground before a small convoy of droids is already bustling inside, sweeping Hux and Kylo up in a flurry of post-landfall protocol: the bag with the artefacts is bundled into the trunk unit of a squat, four-wheeled droid, a small screen on one side panel flickering to life as its internal scanners start sweeping for potential radiation. Two tall medbots each take one of Hux’s and Kylo’s arms, escorting them at a brisk not-quite trot to the decon chamber connected to the hangar. There, they are ordered to undress and stand, naked and spread-eagled, in small frosted glass cubicles while mechanical arms drop from the ceiling like spiders’ legs and spray them down with water chemically-treated to eliminate any viruses, unfriendly nanites or radioactive particles.

Kylo goes through the motions robotically, and continues to stare ahead of himself, almost blankly, while the pincer-like servos on the shower’s arms poke and prod and lift and maneuver his various body parts. He hasn’t said a single word to Hux since they left Oricon. Hux watches him covertly over the rim of his own unit, and wonders what to say.

It feels like an eternity, but eventually the spray of water fizzles out, and the spider arms retract back into the ceiling, seemingly satisfied that all potential threats have been removed. Water drips into the slowly-draining pools at their feet. Towels lay neatly folded on the low, slatted benches right outside the decon units, and Hux retrieves a loose black tunic and pair of wide cotton pants from one of the tall lockers stacked by the wall. By the time he finishes dressing, Kylo is gone, his towel a bedraggled wet heap on the bench and the locker closest to the door empty. 

Hux orders the satchel containing the masks to be taken to the security vaults in the Finalizer’s R&D labs, and Leader Snoke notified that the artefacts are onboard. He watches, hands folded behind his back, until the squat droid disappears out the hangar and trundles into a dark corridor, bearing its precious cargo to the belly of the Finalizer, where all her most important assets are stored. Then he turns and heads toward his own quarters. All he wants is a long, hot shower in clean, untreated water, and to get away from this godforsaken planet - not necessarily in that order. 

The ship seems abandoned at this hour, the only sound the quiet whir of recycled air through her vents, the deep and constant hum of her ion drives, and the soft echo of Hux’s shoes as he makes his way along the port side of the Finalizer, heading to the personnel deck. He doesn’t meet anyone on his way to his quarters; not in the long and winding corridors sprawling out from the hangar like fingers, nor in the elevator leading to the upper decks, nor in the low-lit and narrow-walled hallways of the personnel quarters. His only company, as he turns the last corner into the corridor leading to his own quarters, is the sound of his steps. 

At first, it seems ordinary.

But then the echos start to lag. The sound of another footstep follows Hux’s, just slightly off-rhythm, a millisecond too slow to be natural. And as he progresses down the corridor the echoing steps grow further and further out of cadence until the sound of two distinct sets of footsteps resound in the hallway.

Hux frowns, and slows to a stop. The second set of footsteps also stops. He hesitates for a moment, then half turns to look behind him. Nothing. Just an empty corridor framed by the Finalizer’s signature flat, angular doors and strip-lights set into the walls.

Hux does not believe in anything that isn’t quantifiable. That is to say, he doesn’t believe there exists anything that cannot be defined, explained or otherwise measured by science. And he certainly does not believe in the supernatural. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he stares at the empty corridor. He’s sure this is some kind of residual influence of the ground crew’s silly fear mongering - all that talk of curses and men dying. Admittedly, the strange, scratched markings on the doorway of the excavated chamber on Oricon and the deep and black abyss waiting within and the eerily untarnished masks and the disturbing vacancy in Kylo’s eyes when he held one did not help; despite rumours to the contrary, Hux _does_ have an imagination, and even he isn’t immune to having it run away from him at times. 

Shaking his head at himself and willing away the uneasy sensation crawling up his spine, he resumes his walk, albeit at a slightly faster pace, closing the distance to his door and keying in his entry code, quickly. The doors hiss open, and he steps into the dark antechamber.

The lights do not engage automatically at his presence. Dim light from the corridor casts an elongated rectangle of grey on the floor in front of him, warping his shadow. He slows to a stop just inside the door, glaring up at the ceiling, then reaches over to the control panel set into the wall beside the door, slapping his palm lightly against it to manually switch on the lights. Nothing. He tries a few more times for good measure, to no success.

Because fumbling around in the dark is exactly what he feels like doing right now. He allows himself to heave a frustrated sigh, using the poor light from the corridor to navigate around the antechamber and trailing one hand over the back of the couch and desk to orient himself as he heads toward the black rectangle that is the door to his bedroom. The soft cloth of the dispensary tunic and wide, comfortable pants rustle loudly in the quiet of the room.

He pauses next to the low table in front of the couch, stilled by the sudden and distinct feeling that he is not alone. A glance over his shoulder at the open door reveals nothing but the empty hallway outside and the edge of one pale, angular light. It flickers subtly as he watches.

Hux turns, slowly, back to the door of his bedroom.

And he’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but he can almost make out a shape, a figure standing there in the dark. The hair on the back of his neck stands up. Taking a slow, tentative step toward the door, he leans forward slightly, peering into the dark.

“... Kylo?”

He thinks he sees movement. The figure shifts, maybe, its head turning very slightly in Hux’s direction. (Goosebumps race down his arms. Survival instinct is telling him to  _ move away, back away, get out._)

He swallows, dryly, throat working, and takes another slow step forward. 

In the dark, the shape is breathing. It’s watching Hux, he’s sure of it now, the barest reflection of eyes glinting in the dark as they shift to look at him. And that tiny voice in the back of Hux’s head is screaming now, _get out, get out!_

He takes another step forward, entering the bedroom. The lights flare on at the movement, brightening to their preprogrammed setting with a low whine. He raises a hand, cursing as the glare spears into his eyes, and blinks them a few times, squinting until he can see again. 

The room is empty.

Lowering his hand, he looks around the room, to both sides of himself and in every corner and even up toward the ceiling. Nothing.

A soft noise from behind. Hux whirls around just in time to see a decidedly Kylo-shaped silhouette disappearing around the door of the antechamber, out into the light of the corridor outside. He scowls, bolting out the bedroom and past the low table and couch and desk and catching himself on the doorframe with both hands, before leaning outside to say, “Ren, by the stars, if this is some kind of joke, I will…”

He trails off, leaning in his doorframe and staring outside. The corridor stretches out to both sides, empty.

Okay. He’ll admit that this is compelling evidence of the existence that something, if not supernatural, then definitely Very Strange, is going on. He rubs his eyes for good measure and takes another look, just to be sure, but the hallway is still devoid of life, quiet and bare. And of course, when he steps back into his antechamber, the traitorous lights flicker on to their presets, dousing the room in the slightly warmer glow common to standard personnel quarters.

He closes and locks the door, and starts preparing for bed. He’s just tired. That’s all it is. He’s tired, or something on that infernal planet made him ill, and he’s hallucinating. In either case, some sleep is bound to bring some much-needed clarity to the situation, and in the morning, he’ll confront Kylo about the footsteps in the hall and the shadow in his room, and Kylo will surely try to explain it away with some Force-related nonsense, which Hux will ignore and/or possibly ridicule, depending on whether his mood has improved by that time or not.

The sheets are cold when he slips between them, forgoing his shower in favour of rest. He keeps the lights on their dimmest setting, not quite willing to keep company with complete darkness, and closes his eyes, and eventually drifts into a fitful sleep.

 

\---

 

When he wakes the next morning, it’s to an empty bed. This, more than anything else, alerts him to the fact that something is definitely wrong. 

In the close to four years they’ve been sleeping together, Hux has come to learn that Kylo has a surprisingly, and deeply, codependent personality. Initially, Hux wrote it off as a lack of understanding of the concept of personal space. Kylo would find him during his shift, crowding him against the barrier of the mezzanine overlooking the command bridge. He’d sit next to him in meetings, just a few inches too close. He’d come to Hux’s quarters every night. It wasn’t until he started staying that Hux finally realized: Kylo is the kind of person who doesn’t just hate being alone - he’s incapable of it. Even on nights when they were both too tired for sex, Kylo would magically appear outside as soon as Hux got off shift, like clockwork, as if he were monitoring his schedule (Hux would later learn he was using the Force to do so). Sometimes they wouldn’t even speak - Hux would work at his desk and Kylo would meditate, or Hux would watch old holofilms on the wallscreen in his antechamber while Kylo wrote mission reports. But they always, always went to bed together.

In fact, Hux can’t remember the last time Kylo didn’t sleep in his quarters, except those days where some mission or other called for him to be off-ship. He’s the most physically affectionate person Hux has ever come across, at times almost stiflingly so.

And so the fact that Hux wakes to an empty bed alarms him. 

He sits down at the terminal at his desk in his robe, flips open his reading glasses and pushes them onto his nose. He uses his command key to call up the ship’s boarding logs: apart from a small, standard patrol of TIE fighters, no vessels have come or gone from the Finalizer’s docking bays since their landfall transport arrived back from Oricon the previous day. He swipes to close the logs, and enters the personnel records. If Kylo is still on board, the ship’s logs will have recorded his access codes being used to enter and leave various rooms, as they do all staff. Kylo Ren’s last activity shows him entering the decon chamber with Hux the previous day. Hux frowns slightly. Even if he just went back to his quarters, the logs would show him calling the elevator to get to the personnel deck, and keying his doors to get in. But the logs show no trace of him after leaving the hangar - as if he just disappeared.

Kylo’s helmet sits on Hux’s desk next to the terminal, a very light sheen of dust gathering in a neat circle right in the center of its crown. He hasn’t worn the helmet much since Starkiller Base - while the lightsaber scar on his face has mostly healed, Hux knows he still doesn’t find the weight of the mask comfortable, and can’t stand to wear it for long periods of time. So he’s been going without it more and more often, infrequently enough of late to leave it abandoned in Hux’s quarters. It stares at Hux now, the silver ornamentation around its eyes giving it the impression of a deep frown. He looks into the empty eye holes and worries at his bottom lip with his teeth, for a whimsical second weighing the possibility that the mask could retain some of Kylo’s Force powers - and that he can use it to communicate with him somehow - against how stupid he would feel trying to do so.

Of course, he could always use Kylo’s tracker. The small device - implanted in the buckle of Kylo’s only belt, a gift from Hux that he never goes without - is linked to the location services in Hux’s personal datapad, and the only way he could have found Kylo half-dead in the rapidly-collapsing forest the fateful day Starkiller Base exploded. He’s relatively sure Kylo doesn’t know of the tracker’s existence, and he intends to keep it that way. A small, phazing yellow dot indicates the datapad’s current position on a simplified blueprint of the Finalizer when he opens the location services screen, but otherwise, the screen is empty. No tiny blue blip to tell him where Kylo is. Hux runs a manual scan, and then runs it two more times to be sure, with the same result: Kylo Ren not found on board.

If he were the kind of person to be taken to panic, it might be used to describe the sudden rush of cold dousing his body as he stares at the small screen and the blinking message.

And no matter how he tries to rationalize or explain it away, one thing is very clear: ever since they brought the masks back from Oricon, strange things have been happening on board the Finalizer. Invisible stalkers following him down corridors, shadowy presences in the dark, and now Kylo has gone missing. Logically, it makes sense that these events are somehow connected, which can only mean that the masks are at the root of all of these anomalies. 

“Cursed…” he murmurs, tasting the word in his mouth, bitterly. 

No. He doesn’t know enough about the masks to posit a solid theory, but there is one thing he is absolutely, unshakably certain of: there are no such things as curses. He’s starting to get more and more convinced that the Force is somehow involved in all of this, and Kylo’s mysterious disappearance only reinforces that opinion.

He’s also convinced that there’s more to these masks than Snoke has let on, and he still isn’t sure this entire endeavour hasn’t been the Supreme Leader’s version of visiting punishment on them for the loss of Starkiller Base. There exists the possibility that the masks could be a lot more dangerous than they’ve been told, and that the Finalizer and her crew was assigned this mission by virtue of being expendable. 

Or, he could just be paranoid. He clicks his tongue at himself in frustration and stands up from his desk.

Either way, he considers as he takes a quick shower, the most pertinent course of action would be to find out more about these artefacts, what they are and where they came from. He learned at a young age that information is more powerful than any weapon in war, and found this to be true in all other areas of life as well. Get the facts first, then formulate a theory.

So, he strategizes as he quickly gets dressed in his uniform and puts in his contact lenses in front of the ‘fresher mirror: he’ll gather as much intelligence as possible on the masks, find Kylo Ren, and confront Snoke about the strange events that have been happening on the ship.

Feeling much more confident with a clear course of action in mind, he leaves his quarters and heads starboard, taking the elevator down from the personnel deck to one of the bigger central midship hallways cutting lengthwise through the Finalizer.

The ship is slightly more populated in the early hours of first shift, and Hux meets several other staff along his way down midship. He nods at a pair of uniformed officers on their way to the mess hall, and turns the corner into the starboard corridor that will eventually lead him to the Finalizer’s archive rooms. Stepping politely around a tiny cleaning droid whirring its way down the hallway, he glances at the large doors to the R&D labs as he passes them. The labs are home to the Finalizer’s most sensitive scientific research projects, and house the security vaults that contain some of the most dangerous and valuable weapons the Order still has in its possession. Somewhere behind those massive, reinforced ferrocrete blast doors, guarded by shifts of at least two Stormtroopers permanently standing watch outside, Snoke’s masks sit in their plastisteel case, waiting for delivery. The ‘trooper guards are flanking the blast doors when Hux passes, facing the wall close enough for their helmeted foreheads to press against it.

He turns the corner, but something niggles at the back of his mind. His steps gradually slow to a stop. He blinks a few times. Moving slowly, he takes two steps backward, leaning back to glance around the corner of the corridor, back towards the R&D labs. The Stormtrooper guards stand with their backs to the wall, facing the corridor, rifles cradled in the crooks of their arms. He frowns at them, staring for a long time as he tries to figure out what it was that bothered him. Eventually, the ‘trooper on the right turns her helmet slightly in his direction and asks, “General?”, her voice tinny through the vocoder.

Hux shakes his head. “As you were.” He doesn’t add: ‘don’t mind me, I’m only going completely insane.’

He doesn’t wait to see her salute before stepping back around the corridor and resuming his clipped march toward the elevator that connects the upper decks to the bowels of the Finalizer, and the cooled data banks stored in the archive rooms there. Snoke may not have given him information on the masks, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Bureaucracy is to the First Order as water is to the continued existence of all life. Everything is documented to a ridiculous degree - even the reports have reports on how they were reported. He’ll search the First Order archives for anything he can find on Oricon, on the masks, and anything to do with the Force, and get to the bottom of all this himself.

He makes his way down the winding corridor arcing around the starboard hull of the ship, leading away from midship and the R&D labs, and turns left, into the last hallway that will lead him to the archive elevator.

And stops dead.

In front of him are the doors to the R&D labs, and the two Stormtroopers standing guard. He blinks, then whips around to look behind him, greatcoat flaring around his ankles. The portside corridor to midship stretches before him, leading back the way he’d come. Except he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be anywhere near port side. He knows this maze of a ship like the back of his hand; can walk the halls of the Finalizer with his eyes closed. And yet, here he is, face to face with the labs and the Stormtroopers and very, very confused.

“Hello again, sir,” the ‘trooper on the right tries, tentatively raising a hand.

Hux ignores her, takes a deep breath, and turns around. He retraces his steps, turning the corner and marching purposefully down the starboard corridor. He counts the doors and control panels and openings to other hallways as he passes them, and when he gets to the right one, he turns left, into the last hallway that will lead him to the archive elevator.

Nearing the head of the hallway, he steels himself. He stops, and clenches his fists. Closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. And steps through, almost too afraid to open his eyes, scared he might find himself before the R&D labs again, or worse. But before he can prove to himself how ridiculous he’s being, he collides head first with a tall body covered in hard armor that clacks as its parts shift back into place. This is accompanied by an indignant, “Oi!”, followed closely by, “Watch where you’re-- Oh, General Hux.”

Hux opens his eyes, clearing his throat a bit awkwardly as he reaches down to straighten his tunic. “Captain Phasma. My apologies.”

“Sir. Everything alright? You look a little…” She trails off, chrome helmet tilting slightly to one side.

Phasma’s presence is familiar and warm, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a welcome respite. The Stormtrooper Captain is nothing if not sensible and practical - sometimes almost to a fault - and Hux can just imagine how she would scoff at him if he told her how paranoid he’s being.

“Quite alright, Captain, thank you. I was just on my way to the Hive for some research.” 

“Sir.” Phasma seems to accept this, inclining her head. There is a brief, uncomfortable pause.

Hux sighs through his nose and asks, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Kylo Ren, have you?”

Which is, admittedly, a better conversation filler than asking if she’s noticed that the Finalizer’s rooms seem to be rearranging themselves. He realizes he should have thought it through more carefully, though, when she replies, “Ren?”, the blank stare of her helmet boring into him, “Can’t say that I have, General. I dare say it would be strange for him to be up this early. He’s probably still asleep.”

And before he can catch himself, Hux says, “He’s not asleep.”

He looks at Phasma. 

Phasma looks back at him. 

She says, slowly, “You’ve… checked his quarters, then.”

Hux replies, tentatively, “... Yes?”, because the only other option is, ‘I’m intimately aware of Ren’s habits because we’re fucking and he sleeps in my bed every night, regardless of whether I’m in it or not.’

Phasma looks at him quietly a while longer, then appears to decide that she neither knows, nor cares. She straightens her rifle strap over her shoulder and says, “I’ll inform him to report to you if I see him, shall I?” 

Hux says, “Yes. Thank you,” and returns her salute when she steps around him, disappearing down the corridor. He watches her until the glint of chrome vanishes around the far bend, then turns back - and is far happier than he’d like to admit when he finds not the R&D labs, but the narrow doors of the elevator leading down to the archive rooms in front of him. Swallowing a sigh of relief, he slams the side of his fist on the control panel perhaps a little harder than intended. 

The long elevator ride is uneventful. A soft tone announces his arrival in the archive room, and Hux steps out into the chill, breath misting lightly. He tugs his greatcoat up around his neck, glad for the heavy wool of the coat and the high collar and thick leather gloves of his uniform. The quantum processors of hundreds upon hundreds of data servers generate a massive amount of heat, kept in check only by the chemically cooled air cycled periodically through specialized air vents hidden in the grated floors of the Hive.

The room is dark, initially, lit only by the neon blue glow of data terminal screens and strips of bright green lighting set into the floor to guide the way through the maze of databanks. The hiss of cooled air through the vents is the only other sound to offset the constant drone of the servers and the ticking of data being processed. 

The roof of the archive room is a high and vaulted dome, a peculiar shape, divergent from the standard architecture of the Finalizer, allowing for air to circulate inside. The ceiling is divided into a series of interlocking hexagons, giving it the appearance of a honeycomb, hence the chamber’s nickname - the Hive. Strips of dim lighting around the edges of each cell engage automatically, sensing Hux’s presence as he steps into the room, to reveal rows and rows of square, squat boxes on the floor, each with its own darkened display panel and a multitude of tangled cables like vines writhing over almost every available inch of open space. The lights are low enough for him not to cast a shadow as he steps over a thick coil of cabling and heads toward the nearest data terminal - one of twenty tall, narrow podiums with control panels allowing access to the data banks, interspersed at regular intervals around the room. Perching on the small, round swivel chair embedded into the floor, he slips his datapad out of his pocket where it digs uncomfortably into his thigh, and lays it on the terminal next to the screen, tugging his coat closer around his chest.

The choice to house the First Order data servers on the Finalizer had been a controversial one: Snoke’s faction, led by a then freshly-promoted Colonel Hux, lobbied for a mobile archive, less vulnerable to attack since its location would be more difficult to detect and, by extension compromise. The Rems (older members of the higher ranks and First Order traditionalists, “remnants” of the Old Empire) argued that it made the Order too susceptible to a coup - having all its most valuable information stored on board a ship that could be commandeered or, in the worst case, blown up, was, in their opinion, irresponsible. Eventually, Snoke’s not insubstantial financial contributions to other First Order initiatives swayed the Rems in their favor, but to this day, the installation of the Hive on board the Finalizer remains one of the most polarizing and hotly debated issues since the rise of the First Order, and something Hux counts as somewhat of a personal victory.  

Hidden deep in the belly of the Finalizer, the archive databanks span almost the entire starboard side of the ship, storing records of every strategy and mission report and weapons blueprint and Stormtrooper family tree since the destruction of the second Death Star.

The data on the terminal screen in front of Hux flows in a peculiar way, letters and numbers cascading into their shapes almost like liquid. He keys in his access code, and navigates to the Finalizer’s mission reports.

His datapad digs uncomfortably into his side, and he digs it out of his pocket with one hand, eyes flicking over the list of reports as he scrolls through them. He’s about to lay the datapad on the terminal next to the screen when his hand stills. He stares at the spot for a moment, something tugging at the back of his mind, then slowly puts it down. The peculiar warping of data draws his attention back to the screen as the next row of reports trickles in.

The Oricon mission files are only a few swipes down the list. He leans forward in his chair slightly to see the tiny lettering on the screen more clearly. The official brief doesn’t tell him much more than he already knew: Snoke ordered the excavation roughly three standard months ago with instructions to retrieve and safely deliver an unknown number of artefacts, buried deep under the surface of the moon. 

“Helpful,” Hux mutters, closing the brief with a quick downward swipe, “Thank you.”

The history of the artefacts yields a little more useful information. The Empire never purges accumulated information, and the data entries date back thousands of years in Imperial history, back to the Great Galactic War. This is… unexpected. The artefacts must be a lot older than Hux initially suspected. Despite this, not a lot seems to be known about the masks: ancient Old Empire intelligence tracks the location of the artefacts to Belsavis, an ice planet in the Ninth Quadrant, in the “Bohznee sector”, a region Hux has never heard of. There, they lose track of them for several thousand years except for a roughly-compiled list of disparate and often blatantly contradicting rumours, which Hux mostly ignores. 

Eventually, a thread of requisitioned Republic intel links the location of the artefacts to Oricon, where the dig was ordered. Here, the file abruptly ends. No mention is made of what the artefacts look like, what they are supposed to do, or why they are so important.

It seems to grow a bit darker in the room, so Hux shifts a bit closer to the screen, scrolling down to the Oricon excavation reports. This file contains a list of daily dispatches by the Stormtrooper teams overseeing the ground crew. The first few are fairly standard missives, inventory lists and crew attendance reports. He remembers these from the copies he received to his data pad twice a day. He flips over them quickly, scanning over the text, then stops when he gets to a report he doesn’t recognize:  

[[  _ From: OrGT-235 (Lt.RD)       _ __  
_ To: FinG, A.H      _ _  
_ __ Date-time group: 13100GSTSO02

_ Ore removal is proceeding on schedule. Some sediment deposits required drill changes; equipment order signed by Videk submitted to Gen. Hux at GST 0830 (SO). RK-883 failed to report for duty yesterday. We found him crushed under the left aft wheel of the 11-17. Unclear whether it was piloted or operated by itself. Expect to reach 20 km tomorrow by noon. Overburden stockpile scheduled for standard clearance at GST 1500 (SO). _ ]]

He reads the strange report again, then quickly checks through the copies he received on his data pad. This report is not among them. Cautiously, he scrolls down to the next file on the terminal, and the next, and the next, each one unfamiliar to him and more peculiar than the last. He recognizes none after the first two or three, and the texts seem to get more confusing and jumbled as time goes on.

[[  _ From: OrGT-235 (Lt.RD)       _ __  
_ To: FinG, A.H      _ _  
_ __ Date-time group: 17200GSTSO.06

_ Reached 35km four days behind schedule. New crew replacements hired by Videk not responding well to the Presences. They’re screaming. Always screaming. They keep screaming. I can’t take it any more. ]] _

  
  


[[  _ From: OrGT-235 (Lt.RD)       _ __  
_ To: FinG, A.H      _ _  
_ __ Date-time group: 20100GSTSO.03

_ 42km. The replacements have been silenced. Jem says none of the fusion torches work anymore since he burned Saala’s eye out. They are in the stopes. None of the fusion torches work. RK-883 doesn’t like the screaming. They are coming out of the stopes. They are coming theyarecomingtheyarecoming  _ ]]

  
  


[[  _ From: OrGT-235 (Lt.RD)       _ __  
_ To: FinG, A.H      _ _  
_ __ Date-time group: 24200GSTSO.06

_ ydpl ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; _

 

_ TURN AROUND _

  
  
  


_ TURN AROUND _

 

_ TU  _ ]]

Hux releases a slow white-cloud breath, sitting back. His eyes flicker to his datapad, his mind going to the missives delivered to it, all completely normal reports of equipment stock and maintenance order requests and crew turnaround. Not... madness and death and people with their eyes burnt out.

He looks back at the terminal screen, and the two words that finally force him to admit that, alright. Fine. He’s scared.

[[ _ TURN AROUND _ ]]

A change in the quality of light draws his attention away from the terminal, eyes flickering up over the screen. On the far side of the room, the first few rows of hexagonal lighting ringing the ceiling have gone dark. As he watches, another row flickers, steadies, flickers again, and dies. 

_ Turn around. _

Hux feels his heart start to race, breath coming in short pants. Another row of lights goes dark. He wills his legs to move, to get up, but his body doesn’t seem to respond, hand frozen in place where it hovers over the terminal’s keypad. Another row goes dark, getting closer. Panic crawls up his spine and stings the back of his neck and he stares at the lights, unable to look away. Another row goes dark. And another. Blackness swallows the data terminals below. Darkness grows in a staggered encroaching wave, closing in on him from the other side of the room, seeming to spread faster and faster.

_ “Hux, run!” _

The shout jolts his body into action. He runs. Behind him, the last row of lights in the Hive starts to flicker, and as he skids to a halt inside the elevator, slamming his hand repeatedly on the control panel to close the doors, darkness completely swallows the vault.

The doors close with a soft ping, the gentle light inside the elevator enveloping him in merciful solace.

He slumps back against the wall as the elevator starts to rise, gasping for breath, heart pounding hard enough for his chest to hurt. He squeezes his eyes shut, and slams his fist against the wall next to himself, grinding out “Get a hold of yourself, Armitage!” between his teeth. 

There are no such things as curses, or magic, or evil. An electrical malfunction, perhaps, or he’d been sitting in one position long enough for the sensors to default and program down the lights. Science, reason. There is a logical explanation for all of this.

Except, that voice… Opening his eyes, he allows his head to thud back against the wall of the elevator, staring at the display panel as it slowly counts the passing floors. He’s sure he didn’t imagine it. And he doesn’t think he heard it, either - at least, not in the conventional way. Rather, it seemed to come from somewhere inside his head, in his mind. He _felt_ it, along with a sense of urgency that did not belong to him. And no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t convince himself it wasn’t real.

He _heard_ that voice, in his mind. 

And it sounded a lot like Kylo.

 


	5. Night of the living porgs

Hux has gotten his heart rate only moderately under control by the time his office doors hiss shut behind him. Leaning back against the cold durasteel, he closes his eyes for a second to collect himself. He’s not entirely sure how he got here. The route to his office was blurred, so clouded by the immediate and consuming need to  _ get out _ of the archive room that he could only remember running, the echos of Kylo’s voice in his mind chasing him through the ship.

His office is quiet and entirely ordinary: the same dark, coarse carpeting scratching underfoot, the same heavy blackwood desk sitting imposingly in the exact center of the room, cutting the tall back of the leather-covered hoverchair behind it, the same darkened transparisteel wall offering a hazy view of the command bridge below the mezzanine, and the same tall, arching viewport from which a red and glowering Oricon stares at Hux with a sense of expectancy.

He swallows, clears his throat, waits for his breathing to slow to a normal pace. When he finds his voice again, he orders, weakly, “Viewport, twenty percent,” and watches the transparisteel window grow darker and darker, eclipsing Oricon until it is all but obscured and Hux doesn’t feel so much like he’s being watched anymore. The lights in the office brighten slightly to compensate. 

A few wavering steps carry him to his desk, and he sinks down in the hoverchair behind it gratefully. On the right side of the desk are three drawers with ornate handles carved from real silver. The sense of ostentation they add to the already overlarge desk spoke to Hux when he bought it at a dingy little antiques market on Seswenna one shore leave. Kylo used to absolutely loathe the thing - until one memorable night when Hux showed him some of the more…  _ innovative _ benefits of owning such a large, sturdy desk.

Hux slides open the bottom-most drawer, reaching deep inside and turning his hand upside down to feel along the roof until his fingers bump into metal. A thin, square case and an old silver lighter drop onto his palm when he tugs them free from the magnetic catch keeping them in place. 

He taps the case on his palm until a thin black cigarra slips out, and his hands shake only slightly when he lights up. Taking a deep drag, he allows the warm smoke to seep into his lungs, settling over his remaining anxiety like a blanket of calm. He tilts his head back and exhales smoke in a narrow stream of grey, billowing up to the ceiling.

(The Finalizer’s life support system is not happy with this. Air filters set in the ceiling kick into high gear with a rumbling drone, and the red emergency light on the wall near the door flashes at him accusingly. He makes a token effort to dispel the smoke by waving his hand in front of his face, but the sound of a high-toned alarm informs him that the LSS doesn’t think this is funny, and also that it is about to call in sweeper droids to remove the threat to the Finalizer’s oxygen supply if he doesn’t stop that immediately. Hux ignores it, overriding the alarm and the accusing little light from the terminal on his desk.)

He takes his time finishing the cigarra, allowing the calming effects of the smoke to restore some semblance of acumen to his frayed nerves before secreting away the stub and ashes in the small receptacle built into the side of the case, to be disposed of later. Then he types out a request for a holocall with Supreme Leader Snoke, marks it ‘extremely urgent’, and sends it over the encrypted channel to Snoke’s office at the First Order’s temporary planetary base of operations, on Ord Mantell.

He very carefully avoids looking at the viewport, where the deep fissures glowing with magma glare menacingly at the ship from Oricon’s surface, even through the murky haze of the artificially-darkened transparisteel. 

Unable to sit and wait for Snoke’s response, he gets up and leaves the office, going out onto the mezzanine overlooking the command bridge. He rests forward on the railing on his elbows, looking down over the bridge.

He was standing in this exact spot, watching personnel scurry between data terminals and flight control panels and missile guidance systems, the first time Kylo approached him to suggest a more intimate relationship. It was late, and they had just succeeded in the Finalizer’s first hot weapons test on one of the New Republic’s offworld colonies - a ratty space station cobbled together from the debris of old Star Destroyers. The space station had been swarming with rebel ships; old, rusted hulls and outdated tech. Their armed forces, such as they were, hadn’t stood a chance. The Finalizer had dropped out of hyperspace, cannons blazing, without warning and with no survivors. The mission had, of course, been a success. But it hadn’t gone down without a hitch: one cannon had malfunctioned and didn’t fire when it was supposed to, whereas the officer manning another had miscalculated his munitions load and shot down three of their own TIE Fighters, nearly tearing into the hull of the Finalizer before he could get the mounted blaster under control. 

Adrenaline was still pumping through Hux’s veins, and he was too fidgety to sleep. So he’d come up to the mezzanine, his favourite place in the Finalizer. He felt like he could see the whole ship from here, and in theory he could: though the bridge was not physically connected to most of the rest of the ship, all of her systems were controlled from there. It was the heart of the Finalizer, and of his seat as General of the First Order 

That was where Kylo Ren found him. He was dark and brooding, a hulking presence dressed all in black, and still an enigma to Hux at the time. His heavy and strangely lilting steps echoed on the metal grate, and Hux fought a flash of irritation at the interruption of his solitude. They stood together in silence for a while. Hux kept his gaze on the bridge. Kylo’s mask was turned in his direction. He could feel the intensity of his stare, a kind of building tension almost palpable in the air between them. Hux waited. The two of them had differing opinions, and fought more than they spoke. He didn’t yet know Kylo very well at the time, and found him strange, intriguing, never sure exactly what Kylo wanted from him - the man was as likely to give him good strategic advice as he was to insult his lineage.

So he waited. Next to him, Kylo shifted, the wool of his cowl scratching against his high collar. A distorted intake of breath was followed by, “Your hair. It’s a very peculiar color.”

Hux blinked. He turned to stare at him. 

Kylo’s mask was expressionless, but there was a kind of strange tension in his body, shoulders taught, fists clenched. 

Hux said, “What.”

Kylo growled, frustrated, and surged forward to crowd him against the railing. His hands held onto Hux’s arms tightly. His helmet was too close to Hux’s face, breath loud and tinny through the vocoder. His voice was low, vibrating straight into Hux’s chest: “Don’t pretend you haven’t felt it too.”

“Felt _what_?” Hux snapped, trying unsuccessfully to remove Kylo’s hands from his body. 

Kylo grabbed his wrists tightly enough to hurt. “You can’t lie, General. Not to me.”

Hux stilled, glaring at him. “Get off me.”

Kylo pressed close. Hux bent backwards slightly over the railing, trying to get away, but he couldn’t escape the thick thigh pressing in between his legs. Worse - he didn’t want to. There was something about Kylo, even then, back before Hux knew what to call it. He was frustrating and difficult and childish, yes, but he was also powerful and brilliant and soft in all the places that made Hux want to break him. There was no denying the awful kind of magnetism between them - like water and electricity, conducive and destructive and inescapable.

Months of tension between them suddenly reached a peak, and with the adrenaline still rushing through Hux’s veins, there was little he could do to stop his body from reacting. He turned his head slightly, peeking over his shoulder at the bridge below in a last, futile attempt to stop… whatever this was. “They’ll see us.”

“They won’t see.” Kylo said softly. Keeping Hux in place with his body, he reached up to take off his helmet. It hissed slightly as he undid the clasps. Hux found himself staring.

Though he would memorize it over and over again every night they slept together afterwards, seeing Kylo’s face for the first time would be a moment burned into Hux’s memory forever. He was beautiful then, and vulnerable, and his eyes burned for Hux. Kylo leaned in to kiss him, hard, and all Hux could do was hold onto his shoulders, pinned between his body and the railing, and so very lost in the sensation of that kiss...

Hux is gripping the railing tightly enough now to strain the leather of his gloves. He closes his eyes and shakes his head lightly, clearing it of the memory.

Dopheld Mitaka appears in the doorway below, pausing on his way down the ramp cutting through the center of the bridge as he catches sight of Hux. He thumps his hand to his chest in  salute. Hux inclines his head in answer, and Mitaka disappears underneath the mezzanine at a jog. It isn’t long before his steps echo hollowly on the steel platform to Hux’s left. The Lieutenant comes to stand beside him, hands folded neatly behind his back. They look down at the command bridge together.

“All systems are go, sir,” Mitaka reports without prompting, “No news from CC. The crew are getting a bit antsy. We all feel it’s time to raise ship and haul jets away from this place.”

“Indeed,” Hux murmurs, still lost in thought.

Mitaka turns to him. He looks like he’s about to say something, but changes his mind, turning away. Then he changes his mind again, looking back at Hux: “General. If you’ll forgive me, you’re looking a bit… pale.”

“Am I.” Hux lifts his gaze.

“It’s just, well, Captain Phasma mentioned you were acting a bit out of sorts earlier.”

Hux turns his head to meet Mitaka’s eyes. “Did she.”

Mitaka shuffles a bit, clearing his throat. “We’re only worried about you, sir. She’s only concerned for the wellbeing of our General; as am I. We just…”

He looks at Mitaka. Mitaka grows increasingly uncomfortable, taking off his cap and wringing it a bit between his hands. “... Sorry, sir. It wasn’t my place.”

Hux’s stare doesn’t waver. Mitaka mumbles something like, “I have to... uh, weapons check... if, if you’ll excuse…” and quickly salutes again before turning and clipping back down the metal mezzanine. 

This makes Hux feel guilty, a little bit. He bites his lip, then sighs and calls out, “Lieutenant.”

Mitaka pauses, turning.

Hux hesitates. He doesn’t quite want to apologize to a subordinate, but he feels he has to say _something_. And his recent experience in the Hive is still weighing on his mind. So he starts: “You. Haven’t noticed anything… strange going on of late, have you?”

Mitaka looks perplexed. “Strange, sir? What do you--”

“Just strange,” Hux cuts him off, “Out of the ordinary.”

“Uh, well… no, sir, unless you mean the live porgs that were found running around in the holosims on Deck C-Three last week? Took Ren and three officers and a whole squad of cleaning droids to take care of that little fiasco. Did you know porgs have teeth, sir? Well, neither did Ensign Bal. Nasty infection, and don’t get me started on where all we found porg eggs lying around for the next few days.”

Hux stares. “That’s. That’s not what I meant, no.”

“Turned out it was just a prank, anyway. Some ‘troopers wanting to surprise Kylo Ren while he was training. Didn’t work out so well for them, I’m afraid. Just a minor hiccup, though, sir; and you were busy, you understand, so we didn’t want to bother you with it. The guilty parties who cleared medbay already have been severely reprimanded by their superiors, of course.”

“I should hope so,” Hux says weakly.

Mitaka looks at him expectantly. “If there’s nothing else, sir…?”

Hux shakes his head tiredly, waving a hand. “Just… go.”

He waits for the metallic clang of Mitaka’s steps to fade down the stairs back to the bridge before allowing himself a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. So. No footsteps. No shadowy figures. No malfunctioning lights. No disembodied voices in the dark. If a... herd? Of live porgs on deck has been the worst to befall the crew of the Finalizer in the past few days, maybe he really is going insane.

A soft ping from Hux’s office draws him back inside. His request for a holocall with Snoke has been approved. Good. Time to bring an end to all this nonsense. Slinging his greatcoat over his shoulders and straightening his hat over his hair, he makes his way through the halls of the ship toward the starboard conference room on Deck B. 

If any of the Stormtroopers he passes hear him muttering to himself, “A burrow of porgs? A colony of porgs….”, they do not mention it.

He stops in front of the large double doors to the conference room, and tugs on the lapels of his coat, making sure they lay perfectly in place over his chest. Then he takes a breath and presses the entry switch set into the panel beside the doors. They slide open with an abruptly cut-off hiss.

The room is dark, as always, the only light coming from the large hologram of the Supreme Leader, floating in the center of the floor. Around it are arranged several low chairs, which Hux knows from personal experience to be extremely uncomfortable, ringing the room in concentric circles. Hux salutes in the doorway, then steps inside and comes to stand in front of Snoke’s hologram. “Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“General.” Snoke’s holographic form is no less imposing than usual. He half-reclines in his seat, one gnarled hand resting lightly on the armrest. His twisted face is impossible to read, gazing at Hux through the thin, wavering lines of the projection. “What is so urgent that it could not wait until our next scheduled meeting?”

Hux is about to answer when movement catches his eye: Kylo Ren appears behind the Supreme Leader’s hologram, walking in a slow half-circle until he comes to stand next to Hux. Hux stares, words dissolving between his parted lips. Kylo wears his full Knight’s uniform, cowl pulled down far enough to hide his face. His eyes glint slightly in the darkness beneath the hood, reflecting not the watery blue light of the hologram but instead an unnatural and ominous gold.

Hux itches to assail him with the hundred questions that have been plaguing him since the day before, about his mysterious disappearance and the strange happenings on the Finalizer and even the Force-forsaken porgs if it would just make Kylo  _ say _ something to him. But Snoke is watching him expectantly, and something tells Hux to keep his peace until he can get more information. The Supreme Leader has been too reticent about the artefacts, and too many strange things have happened since they’ve been brought on board for him to ignore that there is some kind of correlation. Something about this whole mission has been off since the start, and until he can be sure what Snoke’s intentions are, it’s safer to keep his cards close to his chest.

So he nods slightly in Kylo’s direction; greets him with a murmured, “Ren”. 

Kylo doesn’t respond.

Hux takes a second to compose his thoughts, then looks up at Snoke’s hologram. “Supreme Leader, we have procured the artefacts as instructed.”

Snoke sits back. “Good,” he approves, his peculiar accent stretching the word out unnaturally long.

“However,” Hux continues, “I fear there may be more to them than we at first perceived.”

There is a short pause, then, “Explain.”

Hux opens his mouth, then pauses. Now that he’s here, Kylo standing beside him as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened and with Snoke’s eyes boring into them both, he suddenly feels unsure of himself. His earlier conversation with Mitaka rings in the back of his mind, and he again wonders if he’s going insane. But something is telling him he isn’t, some deep instinct he wants to believe. He frowns a bit, and forges on. “The masks. Since bringing them onto the ship, certain events have occurred that I am having difficulty explaining.” 

“What events.” 

“Footsteps, Supreme Leader, of some invisible presence.” The moment the words leave his mouth, he realises how ridiculous they sound. He cringes slightly, eyes flickering up to Snoke’s face to gauge his reaction. The Supreme Leader is watching impassively. Hux continues, “Dark presences of an unknown nature, lurking in personnel quarters. And earlier, in the archive room, the... lights went out...”

Next to him, Kylo slowly turns his head to look at him.

Snoke’s face contorts into what Hux has come to understand is a frown. “General Hux. Allow me to confirm: you have interrupted an important strategic meeting with my highest advisors only to inform me that the Finalizer is haunted.”

Hux falters. “That’s not… I’m not implying...” He clenches his teeth in frustration. He can’t afford to flounder now, not in front of Snoke; can’t afford how weak it would make him look. He takes a deep breath, steadying his voice before continuing. “Leader Snoke, the masks have some kind of presence rooted in the Force, the ability to manipulate the minds of men. The ground crew on Oricon mentioned this in their reports, and I ignored them. But I’m starting to believe they were right - there is more to these masks than we initially thought. They are dangerous, I am sure of--”

“Enough.” Snoke interrupts. (Hux’s mouth shuts with an audible click.) “It’s become clear to me that the battle of Starkiller Base took a more severe toll on you than I feared.”

Hux draws a breath to argue, but Snoke talks over him: “We have what we came to Oricon for. You are no longer needed here.”

Hux starts, “Leader Snoke, I don’t--”

“I have decided to reassign you to a less… taxing operation. You are to preside over the mines at Pressy’s Tumble, in the name of the First Order.”

“Pressy’s--!” Hux blurts, eyebrows shooting up. “Leader Snoke, the Order hasn’t been active in Pressy’s Tumble since its conception. That asteroid belt is all but barren.”

“What you call a barren asteroid belt is the birthplace of the First Order,” Snoke says authoritatively, “What remains of that moon yielded the ore that would form the foundations of our empire - the foothold of our very first occupation in the Pressylla System. Have some respect.”

“All due _respect_ , Leader Snoke,” - Hux struggles to keep the sarcasm out of his voice - “All that remains of the First Order in the Pressylla System is one abandoned refinery complex, and the only ‘operations’ currently running there are Stormtrooper guard details who were unlucky enough to draw the hive-rat’s tail in posting consignments. Even New Republic dissenters didn’t like the place enough to go through with a proper infiltration,” he points out.

“If you’ll remember,” Snoke counters, “Captain Phasma took care of that infiltration with a swift strike shortly before the Starkiller Base disaster.”

Hux fights the urge to clutch his hair in frustration. “What ore we haven’t mined from the moon debris will have decayed to space dust by now. There is no reason for us to be there. And the Finalizer could never navigate the asteroids without sustaining substantial damage.”

“Do not misunderstand me, General. I never said I was sending the Finalizer.”

The words land like a punch to the stomach. Hux stares, aghast. Against his will, he can feel his face slowly crumpling into a glare. Next to him, Kylo is quiet, hood turned toward Snoke’s pedestal. The leather of Hux’s glove creaks slightly as his left hand curls into a tight fist. He looks up at Snoke from beneath lowered brows. “Surely you don’t mean to consign me to the Tumble alone.”

The Supreme leader raises what counts as his eyebrow. “Are you questioning your orders, General Hux?”

“This is exile!” Hux counters, shouting.

“General!” Snoke rises out his chair angrily. The hologram flickers, as if transmitting his emotions. “If you are petitioning for a dishonourable discharge, I will be happy to oblige.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Hux feels his face twitching slightly. He is all but shaking with anger. Next to him, Kylo is silent.

Hux is the first to break, ingrained soldier’s training winning over his rage. He looks away, glaring at the floor. From the corner of his eye, he sees Snoke’s broken body sink back into the chair. The Supreme Leader makes a dismissive gesture with one hand. His voice, when he speaks, has regained its low rumble, accent dragging over the words: “You will depart for Pressy’s Tumble at first shift tomorrow morning. Now, if there was nothing else.”

He’s being dismissed. It’s clear to Hux that this is not a fight he can win, not if he wants to maintain his rank. But leaving the Finalizer behind with the masks still onboard does not sit well. He bites the inside of his cheek, keeping his gaze on the floor: “Leader Snoke. When will the artefacts be retrieved from my ship?”

“The artefacts are none of your concern anymore, General Hux,” Snoke says, offhandedly. “I will see to it that they are provided for until the time comes.” Before Hux can ask ‘until the time comes for _what_?’, Snoke finishes, “You are dismissed.”

Hux glances at Kylo, who is still completely unresponsive, hood turned stoically toward Snoke’s hologram. Clearly, he’s not about to jump in at any moment. So Hux turns on his heel and marches out the room, foregoing his salute to Snoke. Behind him, the hologram flickers and powers down, shrouding the room - and Kylo - in darkness. 

Stalking down the corridor, he takes stock of his current circumstances: the fact that he’s been banished to the most remote location in the Galaxy, away from his ship and his crew, means Snoke doesn’t want him around asking questions about the artefacts. This is good - it means Hux isn’t going crazy, and that there really is something going on with the masks. On the downside, it also means the Supreme Leader is involved, and his intentions might not be entirely pure. Worse: Hux is now convinced Kylo has been tangled up in all of this somehow, whether through mind-manipulation or some other hold the Supreme Leader has over him.

And Hux can’t go against Snoke directly without losing his stripes, and what little power they still afford him in the Order. The only thing he can do for now is follow Snoke’s orders, or at least appear to do so until he figures out his next step. He must find out what Snoke plans to do with the masks. To do that, he needs to find out what the masks _are_. He has an inkling of how to do that - a single word echoing amongst his jumbled memories from the Hive: Belsavis. A plan is starting to slowly formulate in his mind, turning the firebrand of his rage into ice cold, calculating logic. He’s about to play a very dangerous game, and the stakes are higher than his rank or his ship: if he fails, he might lose Kylo to whatever the Supreme Leader is planning. 

And he’s not about to let that happen. So he’ll play, if he must.

He hails the first Stormtrooper he sees. “Get me Petty Officer Thanisson, and have someone ready an FTL shuttle for departure at first shift.”

The ‘trooper salutes and asks, “Going somewhere, sir?”, reaching down to start tapping on the comms panel on his forearm.

“Indeed. Leader Snoke has inspired me to embark on, shall we say, a research expedition.”

“Sounds interesting. And where will this expedition be taking you?”

But Hux has already turned away down the corridor, unable to keep a vicious smile off his face. 

Behind him, the ‘trooper’s question hangs in the air, unanswered.


	6. Not Pressy's Tumble

"This is  _ not _ Pressy's Tumble," the droid monotones for what feels like the hundredth time, twitching lightly under the weight of Hux's boot. The fingers of its remaining hand spasm once, and then go still.

"Yes," Hux agrees, twisting the screwdriver somewhere in the recesses of the gaping hole in the back of its neck. The droid's eyes flicker as circuits connect somewhere inside its artificial brain. "I know."

If droids could pout, that is what this one would be doing. Its words slur slightly where its mouthpiece is pressed to the hull of the shuttle, head held immobile by Hux's knee, its metallic back warm and solid beneath him. "Might I point out, sir, that we are not even in the same star system as Pressy's Tumble."

"I  _know_ ," Hux grinds out, patience thinning. He wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist. He's rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, but the air in the hull of the small shuttle is overhot and close, his uniform clinging to his back and his hair damp with sweat. His thighs strain with the effort of keeping the droid's chest pinned to the ground.

The droid is silent for a few moments, while Hux fiddles with the circuitry exposed by the open panel in the back of its neck. Then it informs him, "We have deviated quite drastically from the flight plan."

Hux grits his teeth.

"I'm only doing my job, you know," the droid continues, mournfully. "My orders were to take you to Pressy's Tumble. There's really no need for this kind of violence." Its optics rotate pointedly toward the lightly-sparking socket where its right arm used to be. 

Hux shifts his weight and presses down with his foot, immobilizing the leg that had started to creep up. It grinds lightly against the metal floor of the shuttle, muffling the sound as Hux mutters something rude at the droid.

"My motherboard is perfectly functional, thank you," the droid riles, "and I fail to see what eeeeeee--" It cuts off mid-sentence with a drawn-out electronic stutter as Hux finally finds the right wire. The quiet whir of its drive goes quiet, and the light of its optics goes dark.

Hux sits back on his haunches, tossing the screwdriver onto the floor beside the droid with a clang and scowling at it. The drone of the shuttle's hyperdrive flows into the sudden silence, vibrating slightly under his feet.

The droid did not take kindly to Hux's suggestion that they deviate from Snoke's ordered trajectory. 

It put up a good fight, he'll give it that - Hux didn't come away without injury. A bright red welt is just starting to swell on the underside of his forearm where he was burnt by the exposed wires in its shoulder socket, and there is a very tender spot on the back of his head where the droid shoved him into the hull of the shuttle. Once he got it pinned to the ground, though, it was a simple matter of physics, weight distribution, and just the right amount of cruelty. 

Now, seeing it lie there with its head twisted at an unnatural angle, arm socket gaping, and the panel revealing its life source still gaping open in its neck, Hux feels almost sorry for it. The feeling passes quickly however, and he dispels it with a shake of his head, getting up and rubbing the palms of his gloves on his jodhpurs. 

The scuffle brought him and the droid into the cargo hold of the small FTL shuttle. Apparently, the ship’s engineers didn't foresee the prolonged presence of anyone in need of breathable air in this part of the hull - the single air-vent set into the ceiling is rusty and crusted with dirt, and appears to have roughly the oxygen-providing capabilities of a rock.   

The shuttle is old and rarely used, and isn't taking kindly to hyperspace travel. It shudders slightly as Hux makes his way out of the cargo hold, ducking through the small door and into the cramped passenger cabin amidships. He steps over the mess of provisions spilling from an overturned box, and collects his greatcoat from the floor, returning it to its hanger in the small closet space. The metal hull of the shuttle creaks under the weight of lightspeed.

Another low door gives Hux access to the cockpit. It's blessedly cool when he steps back inside. Stars streak past, over and under and to both sides of the ship, like flat silver lines smeared around the cockpit. The transparisteel viewport curves right around the nose of the ship, leaving the roof and an unnerving amount of the floor transparent. 

He squeezes into the recently-vacated pilot's seat, set into a beam cutting through the transparent floor, slightly awkwardly (his legs are longer than the pilot droid’s, and the seat is uncomfortably close to the control panel, causing his knees to press painfully into its ridge) and finishes inputting the last of the coordinates into the shuttle’s new flight plan, adjusting its final trajectory toward Belsavis.

The shuttle's controls are thankfully straightforward, if unfamiliar: changing their course was a simple matter of overriding the droid's access codes and setting new coordinates in the next screen. (More challenging was convincing the droid that Hux actually had the authority to do so.) The autopilot will take care of the rest - or so Hux hopes. With the age and condition of the shuttle, it's very likely he might have to call on his vague memories of flight school back at the Academy to land safely on Belsavis. 

Hux sits back, sinking into the curve of the pilot's seat and absently watching the star trails. He didn't sleep the previous night, too occupied by memories of his meeting with Snoke, his brain working overtime to try and figure out what the Supreme Leader was planning, and his eyes feel scratchy and dry, and it isn't long before the soft hum of the engines and the monotony of hyperspeed lull him into a light doze.

He's woken by the soft, insistent beep of the navigation system, announcing that they have arrived at their destination. A small, digital wireframe representation of the planet appears on the display panel in front of him, and as Hux sits up, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his fingers, the autopilot drops the ship out of hyperspeed. She shudders a bit, engines turning over with a stomach-wrenching lurch. Durasteel groans under the sudden change in pressure. Outside the viewport, above and around and below Hux's feet, the silver lines of hyperspace shrink into a million shimmering stars, and Belsavis balloons into sudden existence in front of him.

From space, the planet looks like a perfect sphere of marble, white with greyish veins, pockmarked here and there by craters filled with verdant green, giving them the appearance of mould clinging to the planet's smooth skin. Flashes of light swirl constantly in cloud-like currents high above the surface, undulating waves of charged, ionized air fusing and coagulating angrily in a massive electric storm, wrapping the planet in a permanent web of lightning.

The shuttle tilts, curving around the side of the planet to Belsavis' ancient port: three massive piezoelectric crystals, each roughly half the span of the Finalizer and trapped in a cage of old crodium, catching and redirecting the raging electrical storm into their counterparts to open up a narrow corridor through the atmosphere. It looks like the only route through the storm to the planet's surface, and this is where the autopilot takes them. 

Even here, the ionized air makes for rough going. The shuttle pitches and rolls and shudders, creaks and groans and protests, and the see-through viewport curling around its nose reveals entirely too much of the way down. Hux finds himself squeezing his eyes shut, stomach rolling as the ship passes through the crystal gate, the storm opening up beneath his seat to reveal the vast white plains and forested green craters of Belsavis.

It's only when the shuttle enters its final descent that he manages to fully pry his eyes open again. The ship skims over flat plains and deep crevices of what turn out to be solid ice, gusts of snow swirling against the viewport and fogging up its corners. As they hurtle over some of the smaller pockets of green, Hux sees that these are filled with trees and greenery that seems almost tropical in nature, verdant bowls gouged into the deep layer of ice-like sinkholes. Twisting estuaries trickle through the trees, the water hot enough to steam.

Some of the craters are big enough for habitation: tiny clusters of strange, angular houses crammed tightly together over the hot springs, sprawling industrial complexes consisting of low, squat warehouses ringing the very edge of the bowls where the ice starts to creep into the forest. Some of the larger clearings are filled with small towns, consisting of mostly decrepit old buildings labeled with holosigns describing stores and taverns and medical facilities.

As the shuttle sinks slowly toward the ground, Hux notices that these craters are connected to each other by narrow corridors hewn straight into the deep layer of ice on the planet's surface.

Landing instructions sent from the surface guide the ship over what appears to be the planet's main crater: a massive canyon in which the forest has been fought back to allow for the growth of the capital. It's a city only in the roughest meaning of the word: small and crudely cobbled together, a hundred different architectural styles lining the patchwork cobblestone roads.

The shuttle glides over the city and follows a long tunnel hewn into the ice, connected to which he finds what appears to be a docking silo: a hulking, domed structure bulging out of the permafrost like a dark pimple on the planet's surface. The arching metal roof has been retracted, leaving the silo gaping open toward the sky like the mouth of a giant beast rearing up out of the ground. The shuttle slows, swivels, and drops straight down into it, the glaring white reflected by the ice outside cut abruptly into shadow as it sinks beyond the walls. A few other shuttles are already docked inside, dotting the bays haphazardly, but most of the spaces are free. The shuttle appears to pick one at random, settling down with a jolt close to the large hangar doors.

Hux powers down the ship, rolling down his sleeves as he squeezes out of the pilot's seat and disengages the port ramp.

The gaping dome of the docking silo does nothing to temper the harshness of the freezing atmosphere, and a blast of icy wind hits him when the doors open. Squinting into it, he hugs himself and hunches over his arms lightly. A light powdering of snow sifts through the open roof, hissing softly where it lands on the hot hull of the shuttle. He briefly considers going back inside for his greatcoat, but a tall figure is already waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp. Hux's brief research into Belsavis on the way here informed him that the planet is inhabited by a species called the Mluki - hulking, ape-like humanoids, just technologically unadvanced enough to have made their planet prime real estate for almost every major power to have held traction in the Galaxy since hyperspeed travel became possible. 

The one waiting for him wears only an awkwardly-draped toga of what appears to be animal skin, despite the severe cold. A thick covering of fur on its body protects it from the wind. Shoulder guards with long, curved spikes are held in place across its chest with a series of leather straps, and a heavy munitions belt draped around its waist feeds into an ancient blaster rifle crooked in one elbow. Heavy rings dangle from its over-large, animal-like ears, connected to a set of chains draped around its torso that jingle as it moves. Dark eyes watch Hux suspiciously from under a heavy-set brow. A round badge of what appears to be copper inlaid with some script he can't read probably declare it to be some kind of official.

It watches Hux as he walks down the ramp, steps clanging on the metal. He has his hands shoved under his armpits, and is trying not to shiver. When he comes to a stop in front of the Mluki, it growls, low and gruff, "Two hundred fifty credits."

Hux’s brows shoot up in disbelief. "Two hundred--?" He turns around to look at the ramshackle dock where his rickety shuttle is parked, and then back to the Mluki. "You must be joking."

The Mluki, whom Hux has decided is female because of the relatively short length of the fangs protruding from her bottom lip, makes a gesture that informs him she is not, in fact, joking.

"You with the Order, yes?" she grumbles. "Order rates is two fifty. You pay, or you park in the snow."

Hux makes a face, digging in his tunic pocket for his credit chip and handing it over. "I thought Belsavis was First Order territory."

"Was," the Mluki replies curtly, shifting her blaster rifle onto her hip and letting the word hang ominously between them, laden with unvoiced meaning. She reaches behind her somewhere to produce a chip-reader and scans the small, plastic card, while Hux surreptitiously glances around. Now that his attention has been drawn to it, the fact that he can't spot any other Order uniforms is glaringly obvious. The other transports docked in the bay range from Corellian light freighters to old landfall transports straight out of the Galactic Civil War, interspersed with a few FTL shuttles dotting the bays on the outer edges of the silo, but none of these barring his own bear First Order insignia.

On the gritty wall near where he's docked is the tattered remains of what might have once been a recruitment poster - if he squints, he can just make out the stylized legs of an AT-AT and the upper edges of what looks like the words "join now". It's torn down the middle, and someone has scrawled over it with spray-paint in the strange, angular writing of this planet. Hux is guessing it probably doesn't say "I love the First Order". In fact, he's starting to be glad that he left his greatcoat and command cap on the shuttle. He crosses his arms again, surreptitiously hiding the First Order symbol on his shoulder beneath one palm in the guise of hugging himself for warmth.

The Mluki official grunts, bringing his attention back to her as she shoves his credit chip back in his direction. (Hux barely manages to grab it before she lets it fall to the ground.) "The city of Plett's Well welcomes our honored guest," she monotones, in a voice that sounds exceedingly bored. Before Hux can reply, she's turned away and slouched down the gangway to the next ship, just finishing its docking procedure, settling into its bay with a loud, echoing clang.

Hux glares at her retreating back. "For two hundred and fifty credits the city of Plett's Well can kiss my--" his muttering is interrupted by a loud blast of sound from somewhere, deep and blaring as a foghorn, and amplified enough to make him want to cover his ears. The ground shudders, and from above there is a massive groan. Steel creaks and strains and grates as the large, vaulted fins of the ceiling dome start to close over the silo, each giant plate slotting into place before the next slides over it, gradually blocking out the sky.

A male voice booming from the tinny, echoing speaker system announces that the docking bay has started closing procedures for the day and the silo is to be vacated. From all around the docks, people start trickling in disorderly lines toward the entrance to the long tunnel leading to the next crater and the city cradled within.

Hux looks down at himself. Fitted black uniform tunic, military-issue jodhpurs, rank stripes on one sleeve, and of course the glaringly obvious First Order symbol embroidered on his left shoulder. He couldn't be more conspicuous if he tried. If he's to actually achieve anything on this planet, first, he'll need a disguise.

Keeping his arms around himself and the Order symbol hidden beneath his hand, he falls in with the steady trickle of bodies toward the entrance of the tunnel, eyes scanning the docking bays lining the ramp for anything useful.

He's nearly at the massive doors when he spots a stack of packing crates heaped haphazardly near the open hull of a large freighter. Over one of the crates is draped a piece of loose green cloth that looks promising. He falls back, slowing to let the others on the ramp behind him pass by. He waits for an opening when no one is in his immediate vicinity and grabs the cloth surreptitiously as he passes by the crates, bundling it in his hands. Then he ducks behind the freighter, unfolding it and holding it up to get a better look.

The cloth is perfectly round, with a hole in the middle roughly the size of a head. Wooden toggles and corded clasps hold together a single split down one side. It smells dusty, and there is a suspicious stain near the hem.

Hux struggles to swallow down a heavy groan. It's a poncho. And not just any poncho - an  _ ugly _ poncho. It's so ugly, in fact, he can come up with at least three separate ways of dying that would be preferable to wearing it. But... It will hide the most obvious signs of his rank, and the warm lining does seem very welcoming against the icy wind still howling around the silo.

He sighs heavily. Takes a moment to steel himself against the atrocity he is about to commit. And then slips the poncho over his head, adjusting it so the toggles dangle down over his chest. Looking down at himself, he can feel his face twisting into a look of pure disgust, and mutters, "Well, this mission is off to a  _ great _ start."

With a heavy heart and dragging feet, he steps back into the flow of people and through the giant docking bay doors, making his way down the icy corridor toward the city of Plett's Well.

 

\---

 

The outskirts of Plett's Well turn out to be clumps of small, angular houses huddling together, stacked atop one another like a beehive perched precariously between the trees, honeycombing over the estuaries and small rivers heated by the volcanic rifts below. Clusters of these units cling to the sloping rock ledges leading to the snow-covered walls, thinning out the closer they get to the cold ice. They slot between the tall trunks of trees and spread awkwardly over the water on uneven stilts. And then the road opens up and the residential area abruptly ends, swallowed by the taller, fat buildings and proper cobblestone streets of the city. 

It's warmer here, slightly, thanks to the hot springs outside the city, and he finds himself surrounded by more people, crowding the narrow streets; Mlukis draped in animal skins, chains clinking as they shuffle along, slow-moving Ithorians, with curved necks and bulbed fingers and eyes bulging from the sides of their heads, furry Bothans with pointed ears and long, fanged muzzles, Lorrdians wearing gas masks to make their air breathable.

Hux passes the Port Offices, a low, columned building in a completely different architectural style to the ones surrounding it, with broad steps dotted here and there by people resting or sitting down to eat, leading up to giant, ornately-carved doors. Flagpoles ring its roof on all sides, but the flags have all been removed or destroyed. One, hanging in limp tatters, just barely forms the red-on-black Order symbol when the wind causes the shredded material to align just so.

Streets called things like "Old Orchard Street" and "Pandowirtin Lane" dissect the main road. Some have been barred off, guarded by Mluki armed with heavy rifles and mean looks. Hovercars and windowless ground-shuttles drone down the center of the street at alarming speeds, despite the lack of any clear road signs or other indications of traffic rules. 

Hux keeps as close to the building facades as he can, heading past canneries and silk packing plants and medcenters and businesses. This seems to be the city's commercial district, and decidedly not like anywhere he can ferret out information about Snoke's artefacts discreetly. What he needs is somewhere quiet, out of the way, and preferably populated by a more... proletarian class of people. So he quickens his pace and continues down the road until the incommensurable architecture of the city starts to change, becomes older, more run-down, many of the buildings scarred with graffiti and decay.

Finally, he comes upon a small side-alley called "Spaceport Row". From the look of the people entering and leaving the alley (mainly, by the amount of weapons they carry and the way many of them are staggering slightly), he feels he's come to the right place. 

He ducks into the alley, squeezing past a blue-skinned Duros with a bottle of drink in one hand and a severe weight problem. The buildings here are tall enough to block out most of the sky, leaving the road dim and murky.

The first building he sees sports a flaking, red paint job, with a neon pink holosign hovering over the door reading "Madame Lota's House of Flowers". Hux doesn't look too closely at the picture next to the title. A human woman and a Twi'lek that might be either male or female lean against the wall on either sides of the door, revealing much more skin than Hux is comfortable with. 

"Well hello there, Red," the human woman drawls as he passes, turning a sultry smile on him. The neckline of her dress goes all the way down to her navel, revealing a triangle of pale white, marble-smooth skin. 

Hux walks a little faster. 

She gives him an exaggerated wink, pushing away from the wall and taking a step in his direction. "Can't a girl interest you in a good time?"

"No thank you, madam." Hux mumbles, ducking his head and staring fixedly at the ground. He hears the click of her heels behind him.

"Aw, you're no fun," she pouts, "I'll even give you a little bonus if you let me see what's under that poncho. If the curtains match the drapes. Ya know?"

Hux feels his face heat up. He bites the inside of his cheek, nearly jogging now.

"On the house!" the woman calls after him to the background of the Twi'lek's amused snort, "No?"

Cheeks flaming and chased by the light tinkle of her laughter, Hux bolts and ducks through the first available door without pausing to look where he's going. All he knows is that he can't stay  _ out there_, with  _her_. The door dilates open like the pupil of an eye, allowing him to spill through it and into the dim interior.

The room he finds himself in is covered in an almost opaque blanket of thick smoke. It's hot inside, and smells like stale Ryll beer and urine, sharp and bitter. It's packed with bodies, humanoid and alien and all kinds of species, sitting on low wooden chairs or even on top of the square tables dotted around the room. Some stand in whispering clusters, others lean on the filthy bar, lost in their drink. The hum of conversation fills the air, almost drowning out the soft strain of a sad love song in the background.

Hux smiles slightly. Fate has brought him to an alehouse. Just what he was looking for.  

He makes his way to the circular counter in the center of the room, sliding onto one of the tall bar stools. Behind the bar is a cylindrical, slatted column stretching from the floor to the ceiling and dotted with holes from out of which poke the necks and corks of various different bottles. The barman is a human in a filthy tunic and apron with a nasty, twisted burn scar leading from his neck to his shoulder. It reminds Hux a little of Kylo's scar, and he finds himself grateful again for the bacta tanks on the Finalizer. 

The barman is cleaning a glass with a dirty-looking rag, giving Hux a once-over from beneath one dark brow. "What can I get you?"

Hux considers the oily smears on the glass, and goes with, "Information." He tries to find a clean spot on the counter to lean his elbows.

"Can you read?" the barman drawls. "Sign outside says 'Smoking Jets Tavern And Inn'. Not 'Plett’s Well Public Library'. You drink, you eat, you sleep, or you get out."

Hux scowls at him, turning slightly in his seat to eye the plate of what is, presumably, food, being poked at by the patron two seats down. When the man glances at him, Hux asks, "Do I want to know what that is?"

The man looks down at his plate, shrugs, and looks back at Hux. "You wanna sleep tonight? Or ever?"

Hux nods. "That's what I thought." He sits back, addressing the barman again. "I'd really rather not partake of your fare, if it's all the same to you."

The barman shrugs, looking unbothered. "Sure. Don't get that ugly shawl caught in the door on your way out."

Hux makes a face. He needs to talk to the invisible people, the smugglers and thieves and lowlifes of the city.  _ These _ people. Their network of information could be even more broad and exhaustive than the records kept by Plett's Well officials. And when it comes to potentially valuable, ancient and powerful artefacts, he's willing to bet not a few of the people in this tavern have heard about the masks, if not tried to get their hands on them themselves. He needs to know what they know.

So he sighs, digging his credit chip out of his pocket again and laying it on the countertop. "A room, then, if that will allow me to stay."

The barman looks him over, clearly sizing him up. Eventually, he says, "You ain't Rimkin."

Hux shakes his head. "No. I'm from Arkanis, originally."

"Only Rimmers in this part of the city," the barman continues, watching him, still wiping the same spot on the glass. (Hux's heart starts beating a bit faster.) "You look too clean for this part of town. Too pale. Starship pale."

Hux meets his gaze, trying to look less nervous than he feels. A single First Order officer in a city showing clear signs of a recent coup, alone in a room full of what are, most likely, dissenters, or at the least, mercenaries who fight for whichever side is currently winning. He isn't arrogant enough to think he would even stand a chance. So he tries, "I wasn't aware it's illegal to live on a starship."

"It ain't," the barman agrees. "Thing is, though. You know, the kind of people who live on starships and never see ground? They tend to be military types. Flying around the galaxy like they own the damn place, trampling all over poor planets like ours too weak to defend ourselves."

"'Weak' is an interesting way to phrase it. If Belsavis had a less corrupt government, you could have easily funded an army strong enough to take on the First Order, or the New Republic, or the Empire, before that. Instead, you allow your leaders to feast off the labor of the aboriginals, leaving you with nothing but a handful of soldiers too fat on bribe money to fight the..." Hux trails off as his words catch up to him. 

He stares at the barman.

The barman stares at him.

Hux's hand starts twitching toward the blaster strapped to his thigh, mind racing. There's only one exit, blocked by at least thirty bodies. He starts calculating an escape route, surreptitiously glancing over his shoulder to pick out the weaker looking patrons in the bar, the ones he might be able to take in hand-to-hand combat.

The barman says, slowly, "Order _scum_ ain't welcome in my tavern."

Hux licks his lips and swallows lightly. There's one more thing he can try... 

He lifts his poncho slightly by its hem, showing it to the barman. "Have you  _ seen _ the First Order? Do you honestly think any of their officers would be caught dead wearing  _ this_?" 

[](https://img00.deviantart.net/90cd/i/2017/346/f/b/the_poncho_resize_by_zaera_d-dbwjna0.jpg)

The barman appears unconvinced at first. His eyes trail over Hux, hands stilled where he was wiping the glass, the cloth still wrapped around the lip. Hux tenses his thighs, ready to run if he has to. But then the moment passes, and the barman shrugs, putting the rag and the glass down before taking Hux's chip and disappearing around the central column to charge it. 

Hux waits until he's gone before closing his eyes and exhaling a sigh of relief. He takes a few seconds to collect himself. Apparently, the First Order is not very popular on Belsavis. He'll have to be more careful, and hope that none of the patrons he talks to here are as perceptive as the barman.

Either that, or get them very, very drunk.

He turns on his barstool, looking over the crowd. Time to go to work.

 


	7. The Dread Masters

Hux has been at this for close to three hours. The smoky air in the bar has started clinging to the inside of his throat and lungs, making his voice thick, and lack of sleep from the night before is giving him a headache. He's had sixteen failed conversations so far, at the price of countless tankards of dubious alcohol - possibly Ryll beer, probably something more... virulent - moving from patron to patron in the hopes of loosening their tongues. 

He pushes his gloved forefinger back and forth along a thick crack in the wood of the table he sits at aimlessly, chin resting on his other palm, swaying slightly out of the way as the barman plunks another tankard of suspicious drink before the old Mluki sitting across from him. The liquid sloshes over the rim, forming a small, brownish-yellow puddle on the table.

"Masks? Sure. I know them masks."

Hux's head snaps up. "... You do?"

The Mluki nods, wrapping thick, furry fingers around the tankard and taking a few deep swigs, beer trickling over his chin in the space between his fangs. "Yeah," he says between swallows, "You mean the Monsters of the Tomb, right?"

This is the first indication any of the patrons Hux has spoken to has given of recognizing the masks. Hux isn't sure what 'monsters' they may have belonged to once, but the 'tomb' part sounds accurate, at least. He sits up a little straighter. "Yes. The Monsters of the, um, Tomb. That's precisely what I mean."

"That was quants ago, though," the Mluki muses. "A hundred generations. Before Belsavis became..." he gestures vaguely.

Hux fills in, "A junkyard?"

The Mluki gives him a Look, made slightly less intimidating when he sways slightly, no longer entirely sober. He finishes, "Let's just say it was back in the good old days.” 

(The Mluki, Hux reflects, must have an excellent oral tradition.)

“My great-great-great... great... great-great - well, you get the idea - grandfather was a guard at the Tomb when it happened."

"When what happened?" Hux shifts a little closer to him. The background noise of the tavern seems to fade behind his anticipation, blurring into indistinct static. "What is the Tomb?"

"The Tomb? Old incarceration facility over in the next Bowl. Used to be a waystation, mostly, stopovers for prison ships on their way to Dontamo or the High Security on Coruscant. But it got some high-profiles too, sometimes." The Mluki trails off, fidgeting with the hem of his pelt where two chains connect the bottom of the garment to a silver loop around his neck. He takes another swig of beer, staring off into the distance. 

"Used to be...?" Hux prompts, willing himself to be patient, although it's difficult: the last thing he has time for is drunken contemplation of the Mluki's half-remembered childhood stories. "Until what?"

The Mluki sniffs, thumping the heavy tankard on the tabletop. "So according to the story, one day, a prison transport docks in. They're transporting a group of powerful human Sith Lords, some top secret mumbo jumbo. Tons of guards, really maximum-security-type swill. Next thing you know, prison break. Everyone dead, every guard, all the other prisoners, every single one. No trace of the Sith. Just gone. Just like that."

“Hold on,” Hux interrupts, “If everyone died, who told the story?”

“What?”

“You just said everyone died. Did your great-grandfather die there, too?”

The Mluki’s face contorts slightly. “Well, no. I guess not.”

“So everyone died except your great-grandfather. That’s lucky.”

“Look, I ain’t gonna argue with you over three thousand-year old semantics. You wanna hear the rest of the story or not?”

Hux sighs, sitting back in his chair. "Fine. What happened to the Sith lords after that?" 

The Mluki shrugs, swirling the last dregs of beer around his glass. "My great-grandad, who lived to be one hundred and twelve, I’ll have you know, said there was a lot of Movement by them Imperial types around the facility, if you understand my meaning. Some kind of banthacrap coverup. Officially, the Monsters died at the Tomb along with everyone else. Unofficially... Some of the stories say they went rogue. Fled Belsavis, killed their master and swept across the Galaxy with a reign of fear, pillaging and plundering and such. Others say they holed up on some Outer Rim moon and built a fortress there, starting their own empire."

Hux swallows dryly. "... Oricon."

The Mluki looks up at him, frowning lightly. "Yeah, that's the place."

Hux chews his bottom lip, nodding. "Thank you. You've been most helpful. How can I go to this... Tomb?"

"Go?" the Mluki raises one pierced eyebrow at him incredulously. "What in the name of the Core do you wanna go there for?"

"There's... something I need to do there." Hux folds his hands and rests them on the table. "There might be some traces left of the Sith lords who destroyed the place."

"How do you plot that course?" The Mluki shakes his head, leaning back, one elbow draped over the back of the chair. "That was near three thousand years ago. Nothing left in that place but scourge and affliction. Trust me, human. It's called 'the Tomb' for a reason. You do not want to go there."

"But I must." Hux insists, leaning towards the Mluki. This is his only lead. Follow it, he will. "Tell me where it is."

The Mluki looks at him for a long time, considering. "Alright. You wanna die, that's your business. But you bought me drink, so I'll give you this one thing." He twists around, looking over his shoulder, then lifts a slightly unsteady hand, pointing at a shadowy corner of the tavern, where a single patron is sitting at a table alone, bent over a glass.

Hux peers at the corner, then back at the Mluki. "She knows where it is?"

"Better," the Mluki smiles slightly, "She can take you there."

 

\---

 

"But I paid you." Hux emphasizes the word 'paid' with a sharp gesture. "Five hundred credits to take me to the Tomb. That was our deal."

They stand on the snowy outskirts of a crater connected to Plett's Well by one of the long tunnels carved into the ice. Hux's poncho flaps lightly in the icy wind. Though the ground they are standing on is covered in a thin layer of frost, it gradually melts into the verdant green of forest undergrowth just a few feet ahead. Huge trees bend under the weight of many small, translucent purple fungi, glowing slightly even in the daylight. 

Hux's guide is an old, mean-looking Mluki, the fur around her muzzle greying with age. She's draped in the skin of a rock-lion with the shriveled head still attached and dangling on her back, and when she shakes her head, the long, age-colored chain dangling between her nose and ear clinks slightly. She leans heavily on her staff, shaking one gnarled finger at Hux. "The fares you paid was for bringing you to the Tomb. Didn't say nothin' 'bout going  _ into _ the Tomb, now did we."

Hux fixes her with an unimpressed look. "I suppose that's an additional charge, is it?"

"Nah. Not enough credits in the galaxy to make me go in there. No mortal man goes inside and lives to tell it. That place is--"

"Let me guess. Cursed?" Hux monotones, crossing his arms, and mutters "Why am I not surprised."

The guide shrugs. "Other people gone in in the past. They pay me, I bring 'em here. I leave. What happens to 'em after is... Well."

"That's a terrible way to do business."

"Don't give two bantha-ticks about proper ways of business. Got me a chip full of credits and a body with all its pieces still attached."

"All your customers  _die_." Hux points out.

"Not all. Some come out of the Tomb. Though... none come out whole."

"Thank you, that's very reassuring." Hux says, acerbically. But the guide has already turned away from him and started slouching back toward the snow-covered path leading to Plett's Well. Hux barely stops himself from making a rude gesture at her back.

The crunch of the guide's sandaled feet gradually fades away, leaving behind a deep, unnatural silence. No trilling birdsong from the green spaces between the trees, no leaves whispering quietly in the wind, no insects or sound of nearby air traffic from the silos. Nothing to indicate any signs of life at all. The quiet is heavy enough to bear down on Hux like an almost physical weight, making him acutely aware of the rush of breath through his nose, of the steady hidden heartbeat in his chest, of the rustle of the poncho whispering against his chest when he moves. 

His boots crunch overloud on the snow, and then thud into the blanket of soft moss covering the ground as he continues down what is, ostensibly, the path - a series of barely-connected patches of dry ground scraped roughly clean of debris. Whatever man-made structures once existed here have been swallowed by time and the forest - here and there, the straight lines and angular corners of what used to be buildings peek out of the trees. The rest is covered in fine grass and sprigs of clinging weeds sporting tiny, pink flowers, almost ridiculously at odds with the cold and icy rim of the crater. Damp moss blankets the patchwork of crisscrossing roads that once dissected the bowl, and crawls up the rusted remains of crumbling walls. A three-legged patrol droid is half-buried upside down near Hux, weeds and thorny vines fusing its rusting corpse to an outcropping of black-red rock. Rubble blocks the path here and there, forcing him to climb over or go around obstructions in the path. The moss-covered ground is slippery underfoot, and he nearly stumbles more than once. 

The most intact building sits on the far side of the complex, built straight into the ice wall. It's made of heavy and hardy steel, and as far as Hux can see most of its walls still stand, except for the entrance. Where the doors once were is now a massive, gaping hole surrounded by shredded and twisted metal, blackened as if by fire. Where the other ruins Hux passed indicated barracks and munitions storage and perhaps some kind of vehicular maintenance facility, the size of the main structure and sturdy nature of its foundations clearly marks it as the main prison building.

The sun has just disappeared behind the tall rim of the ice wall when Hux reaches the building, stretching long shadows over the ground and shrouding the crater in twilight. Closer to the building, he can just make out what appear to be deep tears in the ground, leading away from the doors, long since overgrown with the same tiny purple mushrooms and pink flowers that cover the rest of the area. On the left side of the building, part of the wall has crumbled into a trailing pile of debris. He follows it with his eyes until it abruptly ends at the foot of a large, square box made of some kind of reinforced steel. It lies on its side in a deep trench, as if it had burst right through the destroyed wall and slid to a stop there. What might have once been a door, made of bars as thick as Hux's arm, dangles from one hinge. On one side panel Hux can vaguely make out faint writing in black between the rust and moss covering it. 

A number. This used to be a holding cell. Hux frowns slightly. Whatever it held is long gone. 

He looks back at the ruined building, at the scorched metal strips peeling away from the door like the petals of a flower. Some kind of explosion, perhaps. Beyond the door lies a murky and foreboding darkness. Looking at it fills Hux with a sense of dread, a kind of nebulous feeling of Wrong that he can't quite put a name to. 

He takes a deep breath and sighs it out through his nose. "Of course the answer to all my questions lies in the creepy death building."

Licking suddenly dry lips, he steps forward and through the blasted doorway, slipping into the dark beyond.

The eerie quiet is even heavier inside the building. Even the sound of his footsteps seems strangely muffled, as if he's stepped into some kind of different realm where only echoes of the noises of the real world can reach. 

Almost nothing remains of the prison: slightly raised bumps in the ground indicate where walls once divided the building, and here and there the base of a console or a discarded display monitor jut out of the thick moss. The faint light from the ruined door casts long, distorted shadows, spearing toward the far wall. The long fronds of ferns cover the hole where the holding cell burst through the side of the prison, like fingers clawing at the edges, trying to get in. 

Every surface is rusted and peeling. Tiny sprigs covered in yellow flowers grow between the cracks in the old paint. Hux tugs his poncho a bit tighter around himself against the cool air.

He wanders the breadth of the building, from the doors to the far wall, stepping over abandoned datapads, cracked and dark, and coiling cables half-buried in the moss. A craggy hole in the shattered panel of an ancient display screen lining one wall has been filled with a tiny bird's nest, now abandoned. Overhead, an oblong ceiling light has been ripped out of its terminal, and dangles precariously by a single, fraying cord.  

He meanders through a maze of crumbling foundations that may have once been offices, and walks slowly along the remains of a corridor lined with the broken shards of glass windows spearing like teeth out of the mossy ground. He covers the entire building, but finds nothing of importance. Nothing to tell him about the prisoners once kept here, no trace of the battle that destroyed the place. He swallows down the bitter taste of disappointment. A dead end. A waste of time. 

Outside the wrecked doors of the building, the sun has finally set, and shadow swallows the prison ruins in a wave. 

Hux sighs in frustration, and it echoes loudly in the silence. He's wasted a day, lost an honestly distressing amount of credits, and now he'll have to find his way back to Plett's Well in the dark. To top it all off, his headache from before is back, and his body is starting to ache with exhaustion. He lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

On the far side of the building, deep in the shadows, something moves. A rustling sound, a soft kind of scratching like nails on wood, brief, and then gone. 

Hux whips around, peering into the dim light. "Who's there?"

No answer. A few tense seconds pass. Silence slowly bleeds back into the world, heavy and stifling, and Hux can't make anything out in this light.

He takes a few slow, hesitant paces in the direction of the sound, every sense on alert. He treads carefully, rolling his foot from heel to toe, straining to see something, anything, in the dark. The shadows are motionless. Hux slowly takes another step, transferring his weight onto his foot.

And the ground gives way beneath him with a loud, echoing crack. He has just enough time to think, ' _Oh, kriff._ ' before he topples, scratching at the ground for purchase as his legs plunge down into empty air. Something tears painfully at his thighs. His gloves slip on the damp ground, fingers gouging into the moss as he scrabbles to stabilize himself as his body slides backwards, pulled by momentum and gravity. 

His fingers wrap around a thick coil of old cable just in time. It rips out of the moss with a slight tearing sound, but holds fast, vibrating in Hux's hands as he strains to keep himself aloft. Adrenaline spikes through his chest. His legs dangle helplessly in the empty air below, torso flattened desperately onto the ground, trying to keep himself from slipping down further. 

He curses loudly, and cranes his head around to look behind him. His hips and legs are being swallowed by what appears to be the remains of an old trap door, its wood rotted and splintering. The half of it that remains intact is covered by a thick blanket of moss, which explains why he didn't notice it in the dark. Cracked and splintering shards of wood form a cage around his hips, eating painfully into his thighs.

Letting out a litany of curses foul enough to make a rathtar blush, he tightens his hold on the cable and  _ pulls_, slowly hauling himself up until he manages to hook one knee over the lip of the trap door, using it to lever himself out. He scrambles to his feet. His jodhpurs are shredded down the outside of both thighs, revealing sets of thin, blood-spotted scratches. He scowls at the wounds, and then at the trap door. Through the Hux-sized hole he can just make out the faint outline of stairs, fading into blackness below. Silence settles back over the world again.

It's gotten colder, and the chilly air stings the scratches on his thighs. He  _ really _ doesn't want to go down that hole. But the rest of the prison complex yielded no useful information, and this trap door might be the key to everything.

So he grits his teeth and crouches down, levering what remains of the rotting panel out of the moss. It takes a few tries - age and mildew have almost fused the door right into the ground, and the brittle wood breaks easily, making for a tricky hand hold. But eventually it groans and tears away from the ground, thudding heavily on the other side. 

The mouth of the tunnel is perfectly square, and large enough for two people to walk side by side. The steps leading down into it are broad and hewn from stone. Circular cages, rusted and flaking, line the walls on both sides, housing old-fashioned light bulbs with burnt-out twisted filaments, long dead and, Hux is guessing, beyond repair.

He sighs, digging in his tunic pocket for the small palmlight he always carries with him. As he slips its three leather loops over his thumb, fore- and middlefingers and settles the small, round light in the center of his palm, he remembers a strand of old conversation: 

_ "How were you planning on seeing anything down there?" _

_ "You have a light, don't you?" _

He presses down on the tiny light with his thumb, activating it. Holding out his hand, palm facing forward for the small torch to light his way, he slowly starts down the stairs and into the blackness below.

Even with the palmlight, the darkness is absolute. Apart from his very small personal pool of illumination, everything is completely black. He can't see anything further than the next two stairs below him, and flashes of the tarnished wall to his side. He has no idea how far down the steps go, or when he'll reach the bottom, or if anyone - or anything - is waiting for him below.

Though the tunnel is quite wide, the ceiling is low enough to lightly graze against the top of his head. It feels claustrophobic, close, crowded by the acute awareness of his own unease. His every sense feels heightened, every nerve tingling as he descends, step by careful step into the dark. The light swivels and shakes with every minute movement of his hand, making his line of sight erratic and uneven. His breath sounds very loud, coming in quick pants. His legs ache.

The last stair flattens out into dusty ground as the tunnel opens up into what appears to be an underground bunker. The meager glow of the palmlight catches part of a support column close by, and another further inside. They appear to be made of stone, glittering slightly when the light flits over them. There is no moss growing down here. The floor is hard concrete, covered in grime. What he can see of the wall right next to him is bare steel, aged and browning, lined with rusted pipes disappearing into the dark. 

Hux's foot catches on something, making him scuffle forward - an old, dirty data cable, loosely snaking over the ground. A clear imprint of the cable remains behind in the dust where his foot disturbed it. He lifts the palmlight, following the trail of the cable to where it is joined by others of all shapes and sizes, slithering over the floor from every corner of the room. Hux walks along the river of cables, leaving booted footprints in the dust.

They lead him to a large, dark console, wide enough for four men to sit abreast, with three broad keypads set into its sloping surface. It's connected to a bulky, curving flat-panel display that site right above and spans the breadth of the console. The cables on the ground lead up to and disappear into various feed inputs ringing the base. This technology is old - if the Mluki at the Smoking Jets is to be believed, at least three thousand years old. 

His quivering circle of light sweeps over four old-fashioned hoverchairs, of the kind that still relied on anti-grav generators built into large packs at their bases to keep them afloat. They are long-dead now, lying on their sides or backs in the dust in front of the console. One is broken in two, the light casting angular shadows where its soft cushioning has been gouged away in parts to reveal a metal skeleton and a writhing coil of wires like severed veins.

The display screen is dark, long dead and dormant.

He glances around the rest of the room, but the tiny light doesn't reveal much; glimpses of cables crawling over the pipes in the walls. If the console and display screen are the only things in here, Hux reasons, this must be the prison's surveillance room. 

He walks in a slow circle around the console, stepping over cables and letting his palmlight trail over every inch, from bottom to top. Finally, he sees what he was looking for: a small panel on the side of the console, on the edge of which sits a square button about the size of his thumbnail. He crouches down next to it, pushing his forefinger onto the button. It's sticky, and doesn't go easily, but eventually it gives with a soft crack, and the panel pops open, creaking. Hux read about these old surveillance consoles at the Academy, studied them in a theoretical textbook on electrical systems design history. If his admittedly vague memory serves, there should be a backup power supply hidden somewhere in the bowels of the console.

He feels around the inside of the panel until he finds it, trailing his fingers around the square pack until they find the switch. When he flicks it, the console comes to life with a stuttering groan, long-dormant coolant vents whirring and binary data chips clicking into place as the system starts to boot.

Hux straightens, wiping the dust from his glove on the side of his poncho, before walking around the console to where the display monitors are now filled with static, casting a grey and flickering light in the room. He slips the palm-torch off his hand, laying it to the side of the keypad. It’s narrow beam reflects off the ceiling, adding to the dim light. 

It takes a few minutes for the system to finish booting. When it does, the monitor flickers to life, revealing a mosaic of rectangular images, each with a number and timestamp in the corner. Hux uses the keypad to navigate to the most recent timestamp, then leans his hands on the edge of the console to watch. The image expands to fill the entire screen, stuttering into a grainy, low-quality video. Sound filters through speakers hidden somewhere behind the console, tinny and filled with unprocessed, powdery background noise. 

The  grainy footage shows five figures trailing into what must have been the entrance of the prison at the time. Their robes are a deep crimson shade and made from brocade that appears richly-decorated even on the grainy recording. Their wrists are bound in front of their bodies by stasis cuffs, held in place by glowing blue pulse-locks that thrum with electricity. And their faces are hidden by the gold and red swirls of what are unmistakably the masks from Oricon. In combination with the opulent robes, and borne by the regal postures of the figures underneath, the ornate masks seem far less ridiculous than they do on their own. Their empty eyeholes stare in front of them vacantly, emotionlessly, coldly. 

A female voice swims into the audio feed from a source just outside of the camera's field of view. "--couldn't stop all of them. We did what we could, but one of them escaped."

A second, deeper voice says, "That is disturbing news."

The first voice continues, "It is. We were, however, able to secure his mask in the struggle."

"The source of his power," the first voice answers, hushed with awe. "You have done well indeed, Kriala."

"Thank you, Master."

On the display screen, the five figures have stopped in a line next to each other, their backs turned to the camera. They appear to be waiting for something. The stretching and snapping shadows coming up behind them turn into a row of eight robed figures, half in traditional brown and tan mantles, half all in black with their cowls drawn over their heads. Each has a lightsaber hilt strapped to their hip.

Hux stares. Jedi... and Sith. Working in unanimity. How absolutely bizarre. It goes against every legend and story and fairy tale and historical account of the two factions Hux has ever heard.

"Are you sure it's safe to allow them to keep their masks?" Kriala is asking, meanwhile.

"The task force can control them. There is no need for concern with both Sith and Jedi present. Truly, the Force has been with us this day." 

Kriala's voice concurs, "This is a victory to be written in the annals of history."

Hux frowns at the screen, muttering to himself, "Not in any history  _ I _ learnt."

Kriala's master goes on to say, "The special holding cells have been prepared, as per Antair's instruction. Our engineers assure me that no being, regardless of how powerful they are, should be able to break free of them. Once those bars close, they don't open again."

"And good riddance," mutters Kriala in disgust. "Hopefully this will be the last the Galaxy ever hears of the Dread Masters."

Hux repeats "Dread Masters..." in a slow, soft murmur.

On screen, the group of Jedi and Sith close in on the hooded figures, herding them forward. The camera swivels slightly to follow them to where a line of holding cells, like the one half-buried outside, awaits, barred doors open and decidedly unwelcoming. The first masked figure ducks into its cell and turns, mask staring blankly out at the Sith locking the heavy seal into place over the door. He uses the Force to close the seal, taloned fingers shaking slightly with the power he forces into the crystals securing the heavy clamps of the lock. 

The second figure follows into its cell, and the third, each securely bolted in by a Jedi or Sith member of the task force.

As the bars slam shut on the fourth figure, the video jumps slightly, glitches, static snow distorting the image for a second. When it stills, the last remaining figure's body has turned, mask tilted up. It is looking straight at the camera. Hux starts, physically pulling back from the screen a little. His skin crawls. The figure stares, and Hux can  _ feel _ it, straight through the screen. His hand inches toward the keypad, toward the key to skip past this timecode. But then the console dies, the image on the screen collapsing as the monitor goes dark, leaving his own reflection staring at him in the wan illumination of the palmlight, mouth frozen in a round 'o' of shock.

He is not alone.

A tall figure is standing right next to him in the reflection. He catches only a glimpse of crimson and a flash of gold before the little palmlight dies as well, plunging the room into complete blackness.

Hux careens backward with a yell, stumbling over one of the prone holochairs with a loud clang and spilling onto the ground. He scrambles backwards on the floor. It's too dark, and he can't see anything, but he can hear the figure moving in the shadows, scuffling and scratching, getting closer. His heart is pounding, adrenaline rushing almost painfully through every vein. He scurries away from the sound in an awkward backwards crawl before flipping over and lurching to his feet. Something brushes against his ankle, a phantom grazing sensation before he pulls it away. 

He slips, falls, manages to get up, and runs blindly, heart in his throat. He can feel the apparition right behind him, the knowledge of its presence pin-pricking down his spine. He slams into a wall, hard, and flounders ahead, sliding his hand along it for guidance. 

Something scuttles behind him, the sound of the many tiny legs of insects swarming over the floor.

His hand scrapes over rusted and peeling paint, fingers jamming painfully against the corner of the room. Where is the  _ kriffing _ exit? His panting gasps for breath seem loud in the dark, but they can't hide the whispers and hisses and jumbled moans that fill the room, that have always filled the room, that have been there all along, all around him. He pushes blindly off the wall, and trips over a cable. He hits the ground hard with a grunt, jolting his hip painfully.

Right behind him is a scraping sound, long, dragged scratches like something being hauled over the floor.

And he can feel it, now, right on top of him, smell its musty breath on his face and feel the graze of its robes against his leg. He whips around and crawls away on his hands and knees, frantically trying to find something,  _ anything _ that will lead him to the door. It follows, too closely, one foot dragging metallically over the floor. It's too dark. He can't see. He can't escape. His heart is beating fast enough to throb painfully in his chest. 

Bony fingers close around his ankle, hauling his body backward. Hux flips onto his back, hands scrambling on the floor for purchase. He kicks out blindly with his other foot, feels it impact something with a dull thud, feels the grip on his ankle loosen.

Somewhere, a light flickers on. 

Hux whips around. Against the far wall, one of the ancient lightbulbs trapped in its bronze cage has come to life, casting a pale yellow circle on the old, rusted pipes and corroded wall behind it. Right next to it gapes the dark square of the tunnel leading outside.

Hux doesn't look back. He's on his feet in a second, keeping his eyes focused only on the light as he sets off at a mad dash. He doesn't pause to find out what's chasing him, or how close it is, but he can hear it, that strange dragging noise getting faster, getting closer. 

He bursts through the exit and takes the stairs two at a time. He can feel it behind him, scrabbling against the walls of the narrow stairway, too close, almost right on top of him now. His hands scramble over the lip of the trap door, clawing at the moss as he hauls himself out of the hole and peels toward the square of bright, white light coming through the blasted door of the prison.

He trips over the threshold and spills into the light of day outside, sprawling heavily onto the mossy ground and flipping onto his back immediately, keeping his eyes boring into the murk behind the door as he crawls backward, away from it. He's panting hard. The door gapes open. Beyond it the room is unnaturally dark, an absolute pitch black that not even the bright sunlight outside can penetrate. He stares at the darkness inside, and stares, but he can't make out anything: no movement, no metallic scraping, no whispers, no masked figures emerging from the shadows bent on killing him.

Minutes pass. Slowly, his heart rate returns to normal, and the adrenaline starts to wear off. His breath clouds in front of his face in the cold air. Silence blankets the world. Nothing happens.

Hux releases an explosive sigh, allowing himself to flop over onto his back and look up at the turbulent, lightning-filled sky above. His relief is vast and encompassing, and leaves him feeling weak. A deep ache has settled into his right hip, and his palms start to throb dully where he scraped them on the floor. The uneven ground below him jabs into what feels like a hundred different bruises all over his body.

But he's alive. He's alive. He closes his eyes for a second, lifting his hands to cover his face. He doesn't know how long he lies like that, but eventually, he slowly comes to the realisation that he's been laughing, slightly hysterically. Swallowing it down, he scrubs his hands over his cheeks, and takes a deep breath, and then another.

Leaves whisper in the cold wind, and in the distance, the soft trickle of a spring spills over the sweet trill of a single bird, lost between the trees. A beam of wan sunlight drapes over him like warm fleece.

He opens his eyes, hands lowering slowly to his sides.

It's light outside. 

He frowns.

It shouldn't be light outside. 

The sun was setting when he went into the old prison, and there's no way he could have spent more than half an hour in the surveillance bunker, watching the video feed. And yet, the sun is long up, shadows stretching over the ground. He must have been looking at the surveillance footage for longer than he thought. Hux sits up slowly. He was down there the whole night. He suddenly realizes how tired he is. 

Getting slowly to his feet, he sways slightly as the world tilts beneath him. He's definitely more exhausted than he thought. 

But he got what he came for (and a lot more than he bargained on), and despite his many aches and bone-deep fatigue, he's filled with a sense of accomplishment. He can finally put a name to the owners of the masks and the origin of the scourge that's been haunting him since Snoke ordered the excavation on Oricon:

The Dread Masters.

 


	8. Will The Real Leader Snoke Please Stand Up

By the time Hux arrives back at the Smoking Jets Tavern and Inn, the sun has started climbing toward the apex of noon, and the streets of Plett's Well are bustling with people. He gets a few odd looks from passersby who apparently never learnt it's not polite to stare: his jodhpurs are in tatters where the wood of the trap door shredded the material, exposing angry red welts on his outer thighs, his boots are caked with grime and dried moss, and his poncho is smeared with dust and mud from where he'd crawled over the floor. He hugs the poncho around his chest and stares fixedly at the ground in front of him, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and ducking into an alleyway when he meets Plett's Well security patrols (Mlukis with strange, lopsided hats and large blaster rifles) coming the other way. The last thing he needs right now is to draw more attention to himself - to be quite fair, even he would be suspicious if he encountered someone looking like he did right now milling about the streets.

He limps past Madame Lota's House of Flowers, half apprehensive that the woman from the day before would be waiting there again. Luckily, the alley is relatively empty, and there is no one leaning against the wall of the bordello. He doesn't really think anyone would proposition him in his current state, anyway.

The door of the tavern dilates open, a cloud of smoke and stink and conversation billowing out into the street. Hux drags his feet, body feeling heavy and weary as he weaves through tables already starting to fill with patrons far too eager to get to their drink. A different barman mans the central counter today - a female Twi'lek with pale blue skin and long, striped _lekka_ draped over her shoulders. She ignores Hux as he passes the counter, heading for the very back of the bar, where a narrow stairwell leads to the upper floors and the inn's rental rooms. He's in desperate need of a shower and perhaps some food before he continues his search for knowledge.

The stairs are too close to one another and too high, making him acutely aware of every sore muscle in his legs. The old wood creaks alarmingly, but holds. Grimy, blue-painted walls line the corridor at the top, broken by six wooden doors on both sides, each labeled with a small metallic plaque bearing a number. Hux digs around in his pocket until he finds the slim key card given to him by the barman the day before, and trails down the corridor until he finds his room.

It's small, and smells vaguely of fish. The door doesn't close properly until he kicks it a few times, the electronic lock beeping as it bolts. There is a window with a lovely view of the wall of the building right next to the inn, and a tiny bathroom off to the side with cracked floor tiles and suspiciously yellow walls. There is a small dusty shelf near the door that sags slightly when he lays his discarded gloves and room key and datapad and credit chip on it. But there is also a bed, narrow and perched on high metal stilts, shoved into one corner of the room. The moment he sees it, his exhaustion catches up to him in a wave, making him sway slightly as the room swims in front of him.

He doesn't have time for this. He needs to clean up, get moving, find the Plett's Well library and research whatever information he can find on the Dread Masters.

But the bed looks so inviting, and his body feels so heavy, and his thoughts feel slow and treacly. In this state, he doubts he'll be able to retain much information anyway, if he could even find any in the first place. Maybe he'll just lie down for a minute...

He doesn't even bother taking off his boots. The mattress is hard and lumpy, and the pillow smells strange. But the blanket is warm and comforting where he drags it over his back and shoulders, and the relief of finally allowing his body some rest is almost overwhelming. The room is quiet, soundproof walls and windows muffling the drone of passing hovercars outside and the murmur of conversation from the bar below. The sun just peeks into the very corner of the window, warming the room without making it overly stuffy.

Hux tries to fight it, but to no avail: within moments, he is lost to the world.

 

\---

 

His eyes open when the bed dips behind him. It's dark outside, the room plunged into shades of midnight blue and purple-grey. The sounds of the street have died down into the eerie quiet of that peculiar time of day when it's too late to be considered night and too early to be considered morning.

A soft rustle of cloth. The mattress shifts with movement.

Hux's heart jumps. He stares at the wall and the bottom edge of the windowsill, ears straining for any indication of who it might be, every muscle tense and ready to spring into action. His instincts are yelling at him to flee, to get out, but the person might have a weapon, poised and ready to strike. A thief, maybe; one of the patrons who saw him use his credit chip the day before. Or perhaps an assassin, sent by the dissenter faction to rid Belsavis of the presence of the First Order...

The sheets whisper softly as whoever it is lies down behind him, accompanied by a well-known and comforting smell. And Hux's eyes slide shut, body going limp with relief. He's intimately familiar with the size of the body pressing against his back, with how hot it always seems to run, with how hard it is and yet how softly it curves against him. He knows every blemish and birthmark and scar on the arm that slides around his waist, knows just how to curl his body when it pulls him back against that broad chest.

He keeps his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he slides his hand lightly over Kylo's forearm, fine black hairs tickling his palm. He presses his hand over Kylo's knuckles, knotting their fingers together over his chest. He clutches him to himself tightly, pressing their hands over his rapidly beating heart.

This isn't real. He knows it isn't. It can't be. It's some kind of dream, or one of Kylo's Force tricks, or perhaps just Hux's own foolish wishful thinking. But it fills him with a much-needed sense of peace he hasn't had for a very long time - not since the night before they went to Oricon - and he feels no fear or doubt or terror or despair. Only comfort.

"That was you, wasn't it?" he murmurs, keeping his eyes closed, afraid to turn around because he knows he will find nothing there, and as long as he holds on to the sensation it will still be real, Kylo will still be here as long as he doesn't break the spell. "Back there. The light in the bunker? That was you."

Kylo doesn't answer. Hux didn't really expect him to.

Much later, Hux wakes to the first light of morning streaming in through the window. He sits up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand before groggily looking around.

Kylo is gone, and he is alone once again.

 

\---

 

He showers, and cleans his wounds, and puts his clothes back on again. He feels less tired, but filled with a strange sense of melancholy at Kylo's absence, a kind of quiet longing for things to be back the way they used to be before the masks, before Oricon and Belsavis and the looming threat of the Dread Masters that only seems to become more and more grievous the more he finds out about them.

He considers eating at the tavern, but decides against it, hunger warring with base survival instinct at the smell of what he supposes goes for a traditional Belsavian breakfast - some kind of frankly horrific lumpy brown pulp heaped onto a soggy slice of bread, slightly blackened around the edges. To be fair, it might just be the general standards of the food prepared in the Smoking Jets. To be safe, he decides his hunger can wait.

He buys cigarettes from a vendor peeking through the narrow window of a small hovercart perched on the corner of the alley, and smokes one right there. The rest go into his pocket. He asks the vendor for directions to the public library. The vendor asks Hux if he looks like he's ever read a book in his life, which, alright. Fair enough.

He eventually comes upon the Plett's Well public library hidden underneath the Port Offices building. A grumpy official points him toward an unmarked door leading to an empty room, in which he finds an elevator that only goes between two floors: this, and the basement.

The library clearly isn't used very frequently.

If it has a cooling system at all, it isn't currently functional. The air is stale, hot and humid, and smells old and dusty. The floor is covered in hexagonal tiles of a dubious brown shade, slightly sticky underfoot. Some have peeled away at the corners to reveal the crumbling mortar below. Old, yellowing wallpaper crumbles away from the gridded, dead air vents set close to the ground. The only light comes from a row of tiny lamps ringing the edges of the room, embedded into the corners where the ceiling meets the walls.

Four rows of six data consoles each take up most of the space in the room. Hux picks one near the exit and carefully sits down on the tall swivel chair. The seat is loose and it tilts dangerously under his weight, and he has to brace himself on both feet to stabilize.

The keypad of the console is old, the lettering rubbed off some of the keys completely, and covered in some kind of oily residue in which his glove slips slightly as he powers up the system. He makes a disgusted face, filled with a sudden and intense longing for the sterile, modern and immaculately clean equipment of the Finalizer. With a wistful sigh, he navigates to the 'inquiry' tab. The system lags, and it takes a few seconds for the screen to change, displaying a search bar with an expectant, blinking cursor.

Hux types in, "dread masters".

Somewhere below his feet,  a server kicks in, coming to life with a whirr. The search tab disappears, replaced by data scrolling over the screen in neon green streams, the server ticking as it spits out results.

Most of the entries are from historical records of the Great Galactic War, some three thousand years ago. Information from that time period is sparse, lost to the ages and the disadvantages of maturing storage technology. What little data the server can find relating to the Dread Masters is nothing but a patchwork of disjointed snippets, spread out over fifty annals written by authors with wildly different world views and doctrines and writing styles.

Some of the entries are in ancient languages long lost to the world, of which only translations into Basic remain. Some are written in the secret military codes used during that period of the war, with reams of footnotes explaining the cipher keys and reading order.

It takes hours, and Hux's eyes are starting to feel strained, but he finally comes across two fragments of text that actually provide him with useful information:

> Clayrish, G (522 BBY) _A Complete History of the Great Galactic War_
> 
> "... During Vitiate's reign as Sith Emperor, he would go on to reconstitute the Sith Empire on the lost colony world of Dromund Kaas, largely with the help of a council consisting of his six closest advisors, prophets and military strategists. Through this council's study of the Phobis Devices (ref. Appendix B, " _Sith artefacts and other objects of power_ "), they gained a wealth of arcane knowledge, rumored to include the secrets of immortality. By far the more devastating of their newly-gained knowledge was the power of Dread, which they could utilize to drive any living being insane with fear. This would lead Vitiate to bestow on them the title of Dread Masters, and they would proceed to serve him on the frontlines of the Great Galactic War for the following five years, until their powers grew so great that he lost the ability to control them. They continued to slaughter whomever stood in their way, on both sides of the war, and would eventually force the Jedi and Sith factions to form an alliance heretofore unseen in the Galaxy. Their combined efforts lead to the incarceration and execution of the Dread Masters, following which Vitiate..."

The entry goes on to detail the eventual defeat of the remainder of the Sith Emperor's forces at the hands of some kind of neutral third party, led by an Emperor Arcann, and makes no further mention of the Dread Masters.

Hux clicks through to the reference on the Phobis Devices.

_Phobis Devices (art. Ref. 889-9C44 B, Sith): Machines of unknown origin that ran on dark energy purportedly powerful enough to spark crippling terror by their mere presence. Many tried to harness the power of the Devices, but were driven mad by the attempt. There is only one instance of the Devices ever being successfully harnessed. Surviving accounts of the event indicate that learning the secrets of the Devices imbued their masters with a multitude of gifts of a magical nature, most interesting of which include the power of immortality._

Hux scrolls to the next text fragment.

> Tylewade, H (21 BBY) _The Role of the Jedi in the Great Galactic War, revised edition_
> 
> "... suffered a setback at the hands of the Dread Masters, Sith Lords that were rumored to be so powerful they were able to wipe out entire fleets by themselves. Millions of lives were lost to their mastery of Dread, and their reign of terror grew so atrocious that they were finally captured and put to death by an elite task force of combined Jedi and Sith, the first of its kind in known history, thereby invalidating the rumors of the Dread Masters' immortality."

Hux frowns at the entry on the screen. The 'elite' task force clearly didn't succeed in executing the Dread Masters. The Tomb where they were held was abandoned, rumours of a curse carefully put in place to ensure no one went back. And all of the historical records of that time state that the Masters were put to death. Someone with a lot of influence clearly didn't want the world to find out that they lived, which is, historically, just how people in positions of real power have always controlled the masses: with extensive and liberal editing of what the public is allowed to know.

With a disgusted shake of his head, he closes the search results in the "books" category, scrolling instead to the Port Offices Archives. No luck there, either - the archives go as far back as the Yavin Convention of 1019 BBY, some two thousand years after the end of the Great Galactic War, when Belsavis was first occupied by the old Galactic Republic. It looks like any previous logs that may have existed before then were deleted, leaving only records of the Republic's reform of the planet and the eventual institution of a Coruscantian political system. Belsavis would then proceed to change hands between the Republic and the Empire for the rest of its recorded history, including several coups and civil revolutions to be swiftly put down by either governing force, but no mention is made of the old prison complex or the breakout or the Dread Masters' further movements, or of what happened to the mask the task force had captured from the Dread Master who escaped.

He closes the records and sits back with a sigh. Although some of this information is new to him, none of it tells him why the Supreme Leader would want the masks in his possession, or what their relation is to what's happening to Kylo.

The only thing that's become clear is that the masks are very powerful - perhaps _too_ powerful. Their power seems volatile, seems to have a mind of its own, and from the way he has been relentlessly pursued through the Finalizer and here on Belsavis, he's not sure the Dread Masters would be friendly toward _any_ cause. He wonders if Snoke knows this. If he plans to use them anyway.

Something vibrates in his pocket - his datapad. He suddenly remembers the Finalizer's archive room, and the accounts he'd read there on the history of the artefacts: the First Order had used Old Empire intelligence records to track the masks to Belsavis originally. Maybe...

On a whim, he uses one of the old, fraying cables peeling out of the console hub to connect his data pad to the library's central communications system. It takes ages, but eventually links up with Belsavis' satellite network. From there, he accesses the Finalizer's systems remotely. His rank in the First Order allows him to bypass her multitude of firewalls, and he has to enter his passcode on about seventeen separate occasions, but eventually he gets through to the Hive, and manages to pull the archives database up on the console display.

He didn't know what he was looking for when he was down there before, but he does now. He types in "dread masters" on the inquiry screen, and waits in anticipation as the data starts to slowly stream in. It takes a long time; Belsavis is very far away from the Finalizer's current position, and the library's communications system is very old. His leg bounces impatiently.

Minutes drone on, and Hux's frustration grows almost tangible. But eventually, three record entries appear on the screen.

The first is time-stamped in the same date range as the video footage from the Tomb's surveillance system:

[[ _From: BvST-199 (Cpt.OU)_  
_To: SE, V.K  
__Date-time group: 11609_

 _Transfer of prisoners proceeds on schedule. Combined elite task force of Jedi/Sith managed to capture five of the subjects. Dread Master Calphayus escaped, though we were able to secure his mask. Three squadrons are in pursuit. We expect to arrive at Belsavis Prison tomorrow. Our land-unit is preparing special holding cells for the prisoners in a maximum-security vault hidden deep below the main incarceration facility. They refer to it as "The Tomb". My source on site tells me the cells are locked by special crystals imbued by both sides of the Force, some kind of perpetual energy loop that nothing should be able to break through. I can only hope he is right._ ]]

The next report is from the following day:

[[ _From: BvST-199 (SLt.TG)_  
_To: SE, V.K  
__Date-time group: 11767_

 _The facility has been compromised. The prisoners were too powerful to be detained even by the task force and with the special holding cells. Myself and Cpt Urbra are the only survivors. We tried to track the ship they stole, but have had no success so far._ ]]

Hux shudders slightly, remembering the video footage from the day before, the voices of Kriala and her master. He remembers the old Mluki in the tavern's great-grandfather, and wonders if he was the one who wrote this report. He remembers how the last masked figure in the video footage had seemed to somehow sense him watching from thousands of years in the future...

The last report entry is time-stamped almost two hundred years later. Hux blinks, and double checks the date again. But there is no mistake, this entry is clearly marked centuries after the last two.

And when he reads it, it changes everything:

[[ _From: DrvGF-120.3 (Cnl.DR)_  
_To: EHB, W.O  
__Date-time group: 40388_

_The Battle of Darvannis has ended in bittersweet victory. Our forces were able to eliminate Dread Master Sytrak. We lost almost our entire company in the process, but Kilum Lin's theory was correct: they may be immortal, but they can be killed. This information alone is worth the loss of life we suffered._

_We have retrieved Sytrak’s mask as instructed, to be transported to the vaults and stored alongside the mask of Calphayus. The Dread Host under Sytrak's command has repealed their occupation of the planet, and Empire reinforcements have arrived to reinstate our rule on Darvannis. There has as of yet been no indication of whether the death of their compatriot will lure the other Masters from the Dread Fortress on Oricon, as we'd hoped. With him gone and Calphayus still at large, their collective power is waning, but they are still too strong for us to stand a chance at killing them all._

_The Jedi council has agreed to cooperate with the Empire. The binding ritual has already been prepared. The Dread Host is all that stands in our way, but a swift strike on Oricon when they least expect it might just be enough to overpower them. I am hereby submitting a formal petition for a strike force of thirty squadrons, in addition to air support by the battlecruiser Destructus. The Dread Masters pose too large a threat to the Empire and the Republic to be allowed to continue their reign as a separatist movement. We can only hope they are weak enough for the binding ritual to be effective._ ]]

There is no further mention of the Dread Masters in any reports, until the stolen Republic intel Hux found on his previous forage through the archives, linking the masks' location to Oricon, and, subsequently, Snoke's orders to have the artefacts excavated.

Hux exhales shakily, and sits back, aghast with realization. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach leaves him feeling nauseous, and filled with trepidation. The rumours the Empire had tried so desperately to abolish were true.

Pieces of the puzzle have finally started to fall into place, and the reality of it is much more dire than Hux could have imagined.

The Phobis devices, Sith objects of power dating back thousands of years, rumored to be able to bestow immortality on whosoever can harness their power.

Six Dread Masters. One slain in battle. Four bound for eternity by both sides of the Force. One vanishes into the mists of history and legend...

Only for Supreme Leader Snoke to appear mysteriously at the head of the First Order thousands of years later, ordering the excavation of the masks…

If Hux's theory is right, then Kylo is in big trouble.


	9. Death Ship for Cutie

_Hux was tired. He slumped slightly in the co-pilot's seat of Kylo's Upsilon, hat tilted down over his brow a little to provide a shield while he rested his eyes. The only sounds were the drone of the ion drives and the rustle of cloth and click of equipment as Kylo piloted the shuttle from the seat next to him._

_They were on their way back to the Finalizer from inspecting the progress of one of the First Order's colonization endeavours in the Outer Rim, a small planet inhabited by a primitive species who could no more hold their own against the First Order's army than could ants against an AT-AT Walker. Hux had had to delay a hundred tasks in order to make what was, in his opinion, an entirely unnecessary trip: his troops were disciplined and trained to perfection. They could handle a simple colonization without being babysat. These unfulfilled tasks clamored inside his head, and he'd been using their flight time to sort them in his mind into lists ranked according to urgency._

_He was, therefore, annoyed to find the shuttle slowing. Opening his eyes, he tracked the speed of the passing stars to measure if it had just been his imagination, then sat up, pushing his hat into place and turning to scowl at the pilot as the ship stopped completely. "What are you doing?"_

_Kylo set the controls to allow the shuttle to hover, taking his hands off the steering and crossing them behind his head and leaning back in his seat with a small, satisfied-looking smile._

_"Kylo," Hux repeated, annoyed, "What are you doing? We have to get back."_

_"Just... take a moment." Kylo answered._

_Hux crossed his arms. "I have a meeting next shift, and this report on the Nierport VII colonization isn't going to write itself."_

_Kylo turned to look at him, then rolled his eyes slightly with a long-suffering sigh. "Hux, can you please just relax for one second?" He unhooked one arm from behind his head to gesture at the viewport. "Just... look at it. Take it in."_

_Hux grudgingly turned to the viewport. The Finalizer, tantalizingly close, was perfectly framed, hovering in stasis in front of a gaseous green-orange nebula glittering with stars. She drifted in front of the Upsilon in pristine stillness, all sleek angles and thousands of little sparkling viewports like a mantle of fireflies draped around her. Transports and shuttles and TIE fighters swarmed around her docking bays like tiny specks of dust._

_The number of times Hux had seen his ship from the outside was limited - he'd spent the better part of the past six years commanding the very stars from her bridge, and had had little time to go offship unless duty called for it. Seeing her like this, from the other side, did therefore not leave him unaffected._

_"Isn't she magnificent?" Kylo asked, mirroring Hux's thoughts uncannily, his eyes back on the Finalizer._

_Hux folded his hands in his lap, and didn't reply._

_"I like to come out here sometimes, to meditate," Kylo said into the silence. "She helps me think."_

_Hux tilted his head slightly to the side in a half-shrug. "It is... quite a beautiful sight."_

_"Yes," Kylo said, not looking at the Finalizer anymore, "It is."_

_Hux turned to look at him, and Kylo was suddenly very close and very large, filling the tiny and confined space of the cockpit. Hux pulled away a bit, taken aback by the sudden intensity in his eyes._

_Kylo leaned in across the narrow divide between their seats, pressing their lips together in a soft kiss. His cowl rustled as he shifted closer, one hand slipping stealthily over Hux's thigh and between his legs. Hux opened his eyes, catching his wrist and pulling away from Kylo's mouth to look at him. He took a breath to protest - the confined cockpit of the Upsilon was hardly the place he'd envisioned them having sex for the first time, and he was already late for his meeting, and certainly didn't have time for these kinds of--_

_But Kylo kissed him again, and he was so very good at it, and it was very hot and very wet and his tongue stole the words right out of Hux's mouth, and suddenly, his meeting didn't seem to matter so much anymore._

_Hux's eyes slipped shut as warmth flushed over him. One hand rose to fist in the front of Kylo's tunic, a very soft sound escaping his throat. And then he was being pulled into Kylo's lap, strong arms tugging him right out of the co-pilot's seat and across Kylo's broad thighs. Large hands manipulated him into the narrow space between the Upsilon's control panel and the hard planes of Kylo's chest, an awkwardly tight fit in the seat for which Kylo was already just slightly too big. But he didn't mind so much because Kylo kept kissing him and kissing him, on his lips and chin and neck and cheeks, his mouth everywhere at once, and it was so warm and so good._

[](https://img00.deviantart.net/ca82/i/2017/346/6/0/the_kiss_final_by_zaera_d-dbwjorf.jpg)

_He lost himself in Kylo's kisses, and it may have been minutes or hours later when he came back to himself enough to realize they both had their pants around their ankles somehow and their hands shoved up each other's shirts, and he closed his eyes and then Kylo was inside of him, burning, and all the stars in the nebula outside were suddenly tingling against the back of his eyelids and trickling over every inch of his skin like effervescent foam. Kylo's power clouded all around them, and when he came inside of Hux, it seemed to go on forever, searing hot and intimate and close, in stark contrast with the icy dark of space outside. Kylo's mouth stayed sealed over his desperately, almost like he was afraid of losing that contact, that he would lose himself in his pleasure without Hux to anchor him. It was cramped and painful and uncomfortable and perfect._

_And afterward, sweating and sated, they tugged their pants back up loosely and Kylo picked Hux's hat up from the console and pushed it down over hair that stuck up in places from where his fingers had been buried in it. And Hux sat draped back against Kylo's chest, head lolling lazily on his shoulder while Kylo stroked his thigh softly and kissed his neck, and he ignored the hundred pinging comms on his datapad from his missed meeting, and in silence they both watched the Finalizer glittering in the darkness. And though gravity was enabled in the shuttle Hux felt weightless, and so content, and so powerful._

The Finalizer now is dark, a huge and looming spear-pointed patch of black against the emptiness of space. She hovers, cold and dead, blocking out the stars behind her, not a single transport or shuttle or TIE fighter in sight. Her viewports are hundreds of tiny antholes pierced into her hull. The light of her ion engines burns low, dull and sickly, barely rotating. Her body lies, heavy and listless, at a slight angle, pushed slowly aside by the invisible currents of gravity swirling around nearby stars.

The sight of her as he drops out of hyperspeed makes Hux go cold. She looks completely abandoned.

Something is very wrong. The Finalizer never sleeps: she is the beating heart of the First Order fleet, its proud flagship, with over eighty thousand staff and crew and soldiers and droids crawling through her narrow and shining corridors like ants. She is _not_ the empty shell of durasteel now staring back at Hux through the curving viewport of the old shuttle.

Hux swallows lightly, then eases the control stick on the console down and to the right, directing the shuttle around the barren battlecruiser toward the nearest docking bay. As his shuttle flits past rows and rows of dark viewports and massive support struts and satellite receivers and angled cannons, and curves around to the head of the ship, a single light catches his attention. Somewhere deep inside her, something burns with a bright blue light, harsh enough to be seen even from this distance. It glares at him dully from the command bridge viewport, casting harsh shadows over the angular lines of the Finalizer, and though he tries to steer the shuttle close enough to peer into the bridge, the source remains hidden, secreted away somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Hux frowns slightly, filled with heavy apprehension.

The atmoshield shimmers into a pattern of bright energy-hexagons as his shuttle breaks through and into the Finalizer's oxygenated atmosphere. He sets it down a little unsteadily in the center of the docking bay, amid rows of lifeless transports and maintenance drones and TIE fighters neatly stacked in their slots against the sloping wall, all dark and still. He barely waits for the landing sequence to finish before flicking up the row of switches on the console above his head to power down the ship and surging out of his seat.

He spares a disgusted glance at the heap of rumpled green material on the floor of the shuttle; if he never has to see that Force-damned ugly poncho again in his life, it would be too soon.

The hiss of steam and clang of metal on metal as the landing ramp drops to the floor echoes loudly, the engines whining to a slow halt and the hull of the ship ticking as Hux disembarks, footsteps clanging hollowly as he jogs down the ramp.

The hangar bay is eerily quiet. Absent of the usual bustle of supply shuttles and maintenance droids clamoring for passage and loud announcements over the speaker system at all hours of the cycle, it seems cavernous and gaping, ominously dark.

The Finalizer is running on emergency power: dim, rectangular strip-lights set in the hull just above the floor illuminate little more than the direct area around them, leaving much of the bay plunged in darkness. The faint pools of light lead around the edges of the docking bay and disappear around the corners of the twisting corridors burrowing into the ship. The intervals between them are impenetrably dark and, from where Hux is standing, entirely too far apart.

His footsteps hammer loudly over the grated durasteel floor, the only sound in the quiet hangar. Apart from that the ship is silent, dead, with nothing to indicate any source of life. As Hux slowly makes his way toward the other side of the hangar, he doesn't see a single other being - no officers, no Stormtroopers, no maintenance crew nor strategists nor cleaners - not even one lonely droid bustling about and getting underfoot.

Hugging the hull of the hangar, Hux slips from pool to pool of dim strip-lighting, making his way toward one of the exits leading into the ship. The heavy quiet is broken only by the hidden and deep drone of the ion drive, and it's cold enough to almost make him consider going back for the poncho.

Almost.

He turns into the corridor and pauses: it stretches out before him, narrowing into a wall of impenetrable black. Even the emergency lights do nothing to break that darkness, little pools of non-black barely illuminating the floor right underneath them.  

Somewhere in the distance, a metal clang echoes through the ship.

Hux steels himself, hesitantly starting down the corridor, measuring his steps and keeping one hand on the hull of the ship for guidance as he moves between the tiny oases of light.

He's about halfway down the hallway, aiming for the next pool of light a few metres ahead, when his foot hooks on something, making him stumble. He curses, catching himself on the wall, and whipping around to glare into the darkness at his feet.

Faintly, he can just make out the barest outlines of rumpled material. He frowns and crouches down to take a closer look. It seems to be some kind of garment made of finespun wool that tickles the pads of his fingers when he runs them over it. He feels along the bumps of its seams until he meets resistance: an officer's rank cylinders. His searching hands find the hard curve of a belt, and, further away, an empty boot. A pair of dogtags clink softly as he roots them out of the remains of the uniform, straightening and bringing them to the light to take a closer look at them.

"Petty Officer Lanowar... what happened to you?"

He glances uncertainly back to where the black between lights hides the pool of clothes, unease eating at him. Whatever occurred here, it is nothing good.

Pocketing the dogtags, he hastens his steps, hurrying down the corridor and into the bowels of the ship. Deeper inside the Finalizer, the strip-lights reveal smears of dark brown tarnishing the walls, streaked through with black and dotted with small dried globs of... something he doesn't want to look too closely at. The smell of old blood hangs faint and metallic in the air.

The dark and the quiet set his every nerve on edge, mind racing with the unavoidable knowledge that there were eighty thousand crew aboard this ship when he left, and that something reduced those eighty thousand crew members to so many empty rumpled uniforms, and that that something is very likely still on the Finalizer. Every distant clang and echo suddenly becomes an enemy, dogging him through the corridors of his ship like prey.

He slips past the mess hall and the medbay and Stormtrooper training rooms and the large recreation facility usually humming with movement, and meets no one else. Conference rooms gape empty and black, hoverchairs haphazardly abandoned around dark holotables. The silence is deep enough for him to hear his own breathing, even the tread of the rubber soles of his boots seeming loud in the quiet.

It takes him far too long to slowly make his way toward midships and the elevator that will lead him to the command bridge, pausing at every corner to listen intently for signs of life before stealing through the darkness toward the next pool of light. And every so often he'll come across another rumpled heap of empty clothes on the ground, officers' uniforms and technicians' overalls and the meticulously pressed white coats of the research lab scientists. He steps over piles of Stormtrooper armor scattered around bundles of black underclothing like bomb shrapnel, nudging aside empty and vacantly staring helmets with the toe of his boot.

The corridors of the Finalizer seem to stretch unnaturally, elongating endlessly into the dark and shrouded with the pervading sense of Hux's own fear.

And still he sees no one, meets no one.

He's nearing the final corner that will lead him into midships when he hears it: the repeated sliding pneumatic hiss of a door.

Open. Close.

 _Hiss_. _Hiss_.

His heart leaps into his throat with the unbidden hope that he's not alone, that there is _someone_ else besides him still alive on this ship, and he hurries toward the sound, skidding around the corner - only to stop short.

An officer he doesn't know is standing in front of one of the doors leading off the main corridor. She stares absently ahead with a blank expression on her face, arms hanging limply at her sides. The door hisses open, built-in sensors detecting her presence. Then it slides shut, only to sense her still standing there and sliding open again.

Close. Open. Close.

 _Hiss_. _Hiss_.

Hux steps forward slowly, approaching the officer cautiously. "You there."

There is no response. The officer stares straight ahead. The door hisses open, and shut. Hux tries again, "Can you hear me?"

She doesn't seem to notice him at all. He stops right beside her, leaning in a little to study her face. He finds himself wishing he had Kylo's Force abilities, so that he could dig straight into the woman's head to find out what's wrong with her.

"Hey!" he tries again, louder than he'd intended, and reaches out to shake her shoulder. Nothing.

The door hisses open, and shut.

Hux scowls, shaking her lightly again. "I order you to tell me what's going on!"

Somewhere far in the distance, something _howls_ ; a screeching kind of wail, strangely metallic.

And the woman in front of Hux seems to become abruptly aware. She shrinks in on herself, suddenly kinetic, shoulders visibly shaking as her head whips to and fro and she starts backing away from Hux, eyes wide and flicking wildly from side to side. "Th-they're coming," she stutters, fearfully.

"Who's coming?" Hux asks, taking a step after her, one hand half-outstretched in her direction as if to stop her, but hesitating before touching her again. "What's going on? Where is everyone?"

"They're coming," the officer repeats, twitching violently as the screeching sound hitches, becoming suddenly louder, closer, arms coming up to cover her face. The screaming wail is almost loud enough to drown her voice out completely as she cries out, "They're coming!"

Hux frowns, glancing behind him and in front, down the corridor, but though the screaming sound seems almost right on top of them, he sees nothing. So he turns back to the officer and raises his voice to be heard, starting, "What happened--", but the officer screams "they're coming!" and turns, and stumble-runs away from him, and as she does a strange blue light starts to illuminate the corridor, growing brighter and brighter. The woman doesn't run fast enough: the source of the ear-piercing screech comes wailing around the corner of the corridor. What Hux can only describe as a kinetic and wildly spiking orb of menacing, wildly-fluctuating electric blue energy sweeps down toward them with a sound like nails being dragged over a blackboard.

It's larger than both of them, and fast, and it catches up to the officer in a matter of seconds, her scream swallowed by the wail of the energy pulse. Her spasming body disappears into blue light bright enough to hurt, and when it moves away, nothing remains but a pile of black clothing, crumpled on the floor. It's over in a manner of seconds.

Hux can't help the sound of horror that escapes his throat.

He barely has time to register all of this before the energy orb is on top of him. He flings himself back against the wall, flattening his body to the cold durasteel as tightly as he can, head pressed painfully to the side and eyes squeezed tightly shut. He can feel the heat of the orb as it passes right in front of him, deafeningly loud and violent, light crackling and spasming around its electric heart, bright enough to sear his retina even with his eyes closed.

And he's prepared for the worst, suddenly faced with the inescapable reality of his death, too abrupt to allow him any time to reminisce on his regrets, but it never comes. The orb passes by mere inches from his chest, screams down the corridor, and slips around the far corner and is gone, and darkness and silence slowly dribble back into the world around Hux like thick tar.

He gulps for breath, prying one eye open and slowly peeling his cheek away from the wall. Black has settled into the gaps between the emergency strip-lights again. The door next to him is silent and shut. A few feet away from him, the officer's clothes lie abandoned and cold, dimly outlined in the faint light. An after image of the energy orb is burned into the backs of his lids, in stark contrast with the faint light in the corridor. His rapid heartbeat, stuck painfully in his throat, slowly starts to return to normal. And when the screaming has faded away completely and it's been quiet for a while and Hux is relatively sure the orb won't return, he slumps against the wall for support, knees going weak. He takes a few deep, steadying breaths, clenching and unclenching his fists, receding adrenaline making his stomach turn.

And when he can feel his legs again he pushes away from the wall, belting at full speed down the corridor toward the elevator that will take him up to the command bridge.

He skids to a halt and slams his palm on the access panel, glancing behind himself nervously as the doors ping open. It’s a small, enclosed space, and therefore dangerous for its lack of possible escape routes. But for the moment, it’s also free of Electric Death Balls, and grants a welcome, if short respite when Hux crowds inside, carefully avoiding the pile of dark grey cloth in the center of the floor.

As the floors tick by, his mind races: he's never heard of any kind of weapon with the ability to distinguish between organic and inorganic matter. And the way the orb targeted that officer was strangely specific, its movement almost sentient in nature. He's sure the orb must be related to the Dread Masters somehow, some kind of manifestation of their power, perhaps.

With the Finalizer's systems running on reserves, pumping cold, fresh oxygen into the elevator seems to have been cut from her list of priorities entirely. The air inside is close, hot, and presses down around Hux heavily. Though it moves at its normal speed, the elevator seems to take three times as long as usual to arrive, and, lit only by the dim, red emergency lighting, the tiny space feels claustrophobic and strangely intimidating. He edges around the pile of dark grey cloth in the center of the elevator, huddling in the corner as the display counter ticks up to the right floor.

It arrives with a ping, and the doors have barely hissed open before Hux has half-stumbled out  into the short corridor leading to the bridge. The arching, angular hallway is bathed in light bright enough to make even the black durasteel of the hull glisten silver and white. Stark shadows cast angular patches of darker grey where wall consoles and air vent ridges cut into the walls. Hux squeezes his eyes shut against the sudden brightness, burning after the short respite of darkness in the elevator. The arching, angular doorway to the command bridge is nearly invisible, swathed in a too-bright blue glow. It's here he heads, squinting into the light between the fingers of one raised hand.

Stepping through the doorway is like being swallowed in energy, a light bright enough to be almost physically tangible. He pauses just inside the bridge, allowing a few moments for his eyes to adjust.

And when he can finally see again, he goes cold.

Keeping one hand up to shield his eyes from the blindingly bright light blazing inside the room, he glances over his shoulder in confusion, to where the short corridor leads back to the elevator he just got out of. And then he looks back in front of him, peering between his fingers to make out the details of the room through the searing light.

This is not the command bridge.

Instead, he finds himself in the doorway of a cavernous, vaulted room, easily the breadth of the mess hall and possibly twice the length. He blinks a few times, frowning. This shouldn't be possible. The Finalizer is _his_ ship. He knows every single inch of it like the back of his hand, every last bulkhead and console and cannon, and this room does not, _should not_ exist on this ship.

Except, here it is. And here he is, chest heaving and nerves aching down to his fingertips with adrenaline, standing in the doorway and squinting at the scene inside:

Swirling violently in the center of the room is what Hux can only describe as a hurricane of blue light, erratic and angry and snapping into teeth of spiking energy like lightning whipping out from the column. It hisses and crackles and rages, and as his eyes adjust to the brightness it becomes clear that it's not light, not exactly, nor electricity. It's something else, something far less gentle; volatile and alive.

And in the exact center of the column of light is a bubble of empty, calm space, like clear ice in the middle of an opaque ice sculpture, revealed in strips and jerky glimpses as the lightning hurricane whips around it. Suspended in the center of this pocket of clear light hang the six masks of the Dread Masters, glinting gold and crimson. Behind each is a hazy patch of dark smoke, indistinct and nebulous, but vaguely starting to take shape; the shape of a body.

A loud, wailing shriek right behind him is all the warning he gets: he flings himself to the side, just managing to avoid the orb of spiking blue energy that hurtles through the doorway and into the room. Stray tendrils of energy snap and hiss out from the light-hurricane like a multitude of fingers, reaching out, wanting. They ensnare the orb, and pull it into the column, absorbing it into its turbulence and sending shockwaves rippling through the light.

All of this happens in the instant it takes Hux to fly through the air and land on his hip, skidding to a halt near the wall. He continues to scramble back and away, and keeps his eyes squeezed shut against the brightness. The light-hurricane crackles and drones angrily with the added energy of the orb, and then slowly settles into the static, electric hiss from before.

Hux pries open one eye, peering at the light. The calm center of the hurricane is quiet, stable, and inside, the shadowy forms of the Dread Masters seem to have gained a little more substenance, have become darker and more solid.

Hux gets up slowly, trying to keep his eyes away from the light column, but it's bright enough to almost hurt anyway, and he can hardly make out anything in the room except blurred colors and hazy spots of ever-shifting shadow, thrown into dancing angular shapes by the twisting light.

One of the blurry shadows detaches itself from the others, stepping away from the column; a figure dressed in long, golden robes, grey of pallor and thin enough for its bones to show even in the hazy light. Its arms are outstretched, palms turned toward the energy column. Hux shields his eyes again, the figure blurring and unblurring as his eyes try to focus through the blaze. Blue light is streaming from its hands, feeding into the column. It's chanting softly, in a language Hux doesn't know, its voice raspy and deep and just barely audible over the static hiss of the energy column.

Hux recognizes it immediately: Snoke.

In person, the Supreme Leader is small, kind of bent in on himself, hunched and crooked. And as Hux takes a few careful steps closer, bringing the figure into sharper relief, he can see that Snoke is visibly shaking with the power needed to control the light streaming from his hands.

Hux stops a few feet away, one hand still braced against the light, and raises his voice slightly to be heard. "Supreme Leader Snoke…?"

Snoke doesn't appear to notice him at all. He doesn't acknowledge him. He doesn't stop chanting or glance in Hux's direction. He doesn't lower his arms, spread as they are to his sides, and the swirling light hurricane continues to rage before him, with its six shapeless, smoky figures drifting in stasis inside.

Hux follows the streams of blue light trailing from Snoke's fingertips with his eyes, then turns back and tries again, more firmly. "Supreme Leader Snoke."

Still no response. The energy hurricane swirls and crackles and Snoke chants low and ceaselessly, all of his attention focused solely on the light and the masks concealed within.

So Hux takes a chance and tries, "Calphayus!"

And as soon as the name leaves his lips, its as if some kind of trance has been broken. Snoke's eyes close and he sways forward, arms drooping down next to his sides. The light streaming from his palms withers, trailing away like tendrils of bright blue smoke. He stands like that for a moment, head bent and posture slumped, then straightens, slowly, turning to look at Hux.

"That _is_ your name, isn't it?" Hux continues, meeting his gaze and taking a slow, hesitant step forward, muscles tensed to be able to run if he has to. "Calphayus of the Dread Masters."

Snoke's chest lifts and falls with a sigh, one Hux can somehow almost hear even over the hiss of the energy column. Otherwise, he is completely immobile, watching Hux with his uneven, broken gaze. His reticence stretches on for long moments.

Hux frowns, and demands, "What is this? What have you done with my crew?"

Snoke turns his head ever so slightly toward the energy column. "The crew..." His gaze grows vague, directed toward the light-hurricane but appearing to see some far-off vision. His voice is slow and soft, and filled with some unrecognizable emotion that seems foreign to Hux, unbecoming of the cold and stern Supreme Leader he's come to know. Snoke continues, "They have sacrificed themselves for a bigger cause."

Inside Hux's pocket, it's as if Petty Officer Lanowar's dogtags grow suddenly cold. They rest heavily against his thigh, weighed unnaturally down by the realization that is slowly dawning on Hux with horror: the dead crew members, the faint but growing shadows behind the masks... All the breath leaves him at once, and he feels like he's been doused in ice.

"You're resurrecting the Dread Masters."

Snoke doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. Beside him the blue energy column swirls, and the vague forms drifting in and out of existence behind the floating masks inside seem to gain a little more solidity, a little more substance.

Hux stares at the Supreme Leader, gaping. Out of the million questions clamoring inside his head, somehow "Why now?" is all he can think to ask. "After so many years... Why bring them back now?"

Snoke looks up at the column of light with a wistful expression. "We were great back then. Hungry for everything our powers could have given us. The Galaxy was ours to command. But ambition tore us apart, and they discarded me like I meant nothing to them."

The hurricane of light growls, a hundred long tendrils of blue energy snapping out of the column and dancing over Snoke's body, but whether in reprimand or comfort, Hux can't tell.

Snoke raises one hand, allowing his fingertips to hover near the light with a faraway expression on his face. "But separated, our strength wanes. They were overcome eventually, on Oricon, sealed in a tomb by the power of both Darkness and Light, a binding no one could undo. But I  persevered. And I retreated into the shadows, to wait, to bide my time until..."

Hux stares at him, the final piece of the puzzle slotting into place heavily. "... Until Kylo. He was the only one who could have opened that tomb. Only someone strong in both sides of the Force could undo that ritual."

"I waited for so long..." Snoke inclines his head, his voice withering and sounding tired, old. "So long to redeem myself."

"That was always your intention,” Hux snarls, anger steadily building, “The First Order meant nothing to you. It was all a farce. You never had any interest in Kylo Ren other than freeing the Dread Masters and--"

"Wrong," Snoke interrupts, holding up a finger. "That is not the only reason I needed Kylo Ren."

As if on cue, Kylo steps out of the shadows to Hux's right. His hood is pulled back, hair whipping around his face with the force of the energy swirling in the center of the room. His eyes glow a strange hue of pure gold. Wisps of blue light trail off him, flying towards the hurricane, as if the energy is being pulled right out of him, drawn towards the column. His fists are clenched, posture tense, and his steps are heavy and purposeful. The scar on his face stands out starkly in the too-bright light, and his expression is positively menacing.

Hux has seen him with the intention to kill before, but this is not that. This is so much worse, so much more sinister.

This is not Kylo.

Instead, someone else looks out at Hux from Kylo's eyes.

Hux backs away from him, mind racing. The crackling red light of Kylo’s lightsaber as it ignites is followed closely by its dangerous growl, blade dipping toward Hux as Kylo advances on him.

Hux tries, "Kylo... this isn't you..."

And from behind Kylo, Snoke’s lip curls into a smile as he says, "No. It isn't." He turns back to the light column, spreading his arms out again, and as the blue light once again starts streaming from his palms, he says, lightly and almost off-hand, "Finish this."

Hux doesn't wait long enough to see Kylo's reaction. He turns and tears off, running blindly through the ship.

Behind him, Snoke starts chanting again.


	10. Disarmed and dangerous

The cold floor of the Finalizer is polished enough to reflect Hux's face, twisted in a grimace of pain as he sprawls near one of the small pools of strip-lighting. A uniform tunic curls around his ankle, dragged from the pile of discarded clothes he didn't notice until it was too late. The hard durasteel curve of the ship's hull cradles his back as he tugs frantically at the cloth tangled around his legs. He glances behind himself sporadically at the ever-growing, deep red glow of Kylo's lightsaber, creeping along the dark corridor like a dread sunrise. It growls loudly in the silence, kinetic and hungry for blood.

Hux curses, and kicks at the tunic, and finally, it releases him. His thighs burn with the deep ache of over-exertion as he crawls to his feet and sets off again. Doors blur past, swimming in and out of the little circles of light near the floor - training rooms, holosim chambers, weapons storage rooms. Smears of blood the exact width of fingers stain the walls, dragged into long and fading lines. He avoids more heaps of clothing and ducks into narrow maintenance corridors, around old, unused consoles stacked in storage holds for scheduled disposal, and through obstacle-littered cleaning supply chambers.

But no matter how fast he runs, how many obscure backways and secret hallways he slips through, Kylo is close behind, always, relentlessly following. He doesn't run, but rather  _ prowls_, a slow kind of predatory walk that Hux should be able to leave far behind, and yet is unable to escape.

Having been on the commanding side of Kylo Ren's rage more than once, he has no illusions that he'll be leaving the Finalizer alive. Not when he's being hunted like this. Not when it's Kylo doing the hunting.

He hurtles around a corner, and the sputter of the lightsaber is right behind him, hissing through the air inches from his back. The corridor that greets him is wide and empty, and filled with blue light. He about-faces, flinging himself against the wall just in time to avoid a large and angrily crackling orb of energy as it tears past. And then he pushes off again, running, always running - if he stops too long, he dies.

As the echoing scream of the orb fades away into the bowels of the ship, he stumble-turns the last corner, and sprints towards his objective: the tactical operations control room, home to the Finalizer's long-distance sensor arrays and signal decryption consoles. His only option is to try and leave some kind of record, a message broadcast into the vastness of space for someone, anyone, to find, if there is anyone left once the Dread Masters have been resurrected. This is the last thing he can do: leave all of this behind, all of his knowledge and research. Perhaps someone can stop them when he's dead. He'll record everything he can, and hope against hope that the Finalizer's satellites are still in working order.

The growl of the lightsaber fills the corridor behind him, a discordant undercurrent to the pounding of his footsteps in the dead quiet of the ship.

On the far end of the hallway is a door labelled "I.C.C.S.", and it's here he heads, diving through the doors and slamming his fist on the locking mechanism. A hiss as they slide shut, and the room is plunged into darkness. He backs away from the doors, chest heaving.

The only illumination in the room comes from tiny blinking lights on the communications consoles, user interfaces paneling the walls from floor to ceiling with row upon row of green and orange blips twinkling in the dark, flickering with incoming data. Even coming from the dim emergency lighting outside, it still takes his eyes a moment to adjust. The red glow of Kylo's lightsaber is burned into two parallel crosses on the insides of his lids. 

A few seconds pass in silence. The only sounds are his own gasps for breath, and the rapid clicking of data streams churning through the consoles. His lungs burn.

When it doesn't seem like Kylo is about to break the door down and come after him, he whips around to face one of the consoles. The controls, illuminated by tiny, blinking light-emitting diodes, are nothing more than lighter patches of grey in the dark, their lettering faded and near illegible. He runs his fingers over them, eyes searching, searching, until he finds the key that opens the ship's logs, and stabs his finger on it repeatedly, hissing into the screen, "Come on, come on... I don't have much time." 

The screen flares to life. Bright grey-blue floods the room, too bright and sudden after the dimness of the Finalizer's emergency lighting. He blinks furiously and squints into the glare - the image warps and jumps, static crawling as the system fights to redirect power away from life support and into nonessential systems. His own face stares back at him via the small camera set into the top of the display, hollow and filled with shadow, cheeks streaked with dirt, distorted and skewed in the warped recording.

Sweat trickles in a cold stream down his back. He licks dry lips, and swallows. A small, blinking red light tells him the feed is recording, and he draws breath to speak, but a loud metallic clang outside interrupts him, echoing down the corridor. He whips around at the sound, heart jumping, every nerve on edge. His eyes strain into the dimness, trying to focus on the doors, waiting for them to buckle and break open, for Kylo to step through wreathed in crimson light.

He clenches his fists and waits for the worst - but it never comes. Silence drones back in around him, and his hideout remains secreted away and safe. For now.

So he turns back to the recording: "He's coming." He tries to keep his voice soft, but can't keep the urgency out of it, almost stumbling over the quick, clipped words in the rush to get them out. "If you are watching this message, it means I am dead, and they have been freed. I--"

A brush of air against his cheek. A soft rustle of cloth as something, or someone, moves right next to him. He flinches away violently, staring at the spot, his heart in his throat, painfully hammering against his collarbones as he sucks in his breath, ears straining to try and hear something, anything in the dark.

But again there is nothing, and while survival instinct is clawing at his spine, screaming at him to  _ run_, his logical mind overrides it: it's just another trick, another of their mind games meant to inspire fear. He's starting to wish it would work a little less effectively. He licks his lips, turning back.

He's exhausted and scared, and he can't think straight anymore. Residual adrenaline has left him nauseated and edgy, and his thoughts jumble in his head, refusing to form a linear succession of information that would make any kind of sense to anyone else. But it's the best he can do.

He starts with the most important thing he can think about: "It's imperative that they must be kept apart. No matter what, they must not be allowed to join together. Their power on--," he pauses to swallow dryly, "only works when they are united. Keep them apart, and you can contain that power. But if the circle is allowed to complete they will be unstoppable. There is no hope for us then."

A loud, metallic clang thunders over his words from somewhere behind him, drowning out his voice, and he flinches violently, unable to prevent a soft whimper from escaping his throat. 

The door. 

He's half standing before he can stop himself, poised to run, every muscle tense and straining. A slow eternity of seconds ticks by. And then another echoing bang breaks the silence. 

It's over. He turns back to the camera, leaning forward on the console in his urgency. "He's here. I'm out of time. You must stop them, whatever it takes. They call themselves the--"

The loud screech of durasteel on durasteel cuts him off. Behind him, the door is being torn open, a square of slowly-widening deeper black gouged into the shadows. It seems to take forever, the Force shrieking right through steel and technology and security protocols, tearing them down as though they were nothing. 

Hux scrambles back and to the side, hands shaking. All around him is a sea of whispers, loud and intrusive, jumbled, incoherent words and unearthly sounds of pain filling the room.

They are almost deafening enough to drown out the growl of Kylo's lightsaber as it ignites, its red glow chasing the shadows from the room. It casts his face in harsh lines of glowing crimson and where it illuminates his eyes, they are not the color of rich soil flecked with specks of green Hux has tried to count in vain on many a night, but solid gold, his pupils completely clouded over.

Kylo advances into the room, the lightsaber growling menacingly as he twirls it in his one-handed grip.

Hux backs away, lifting his hands in front of him. "Kylo, please..."

Kylo takes a few steps closer, then seems to notice the recording. His head turns slightly in the direction of the screen, and though his expression doesn't change, the whispers grow suddenly into screams, unbearably loud. The screen sparks and hisses, smoke bubbling out from the console. And then it flickers out, and goes blank, and the whispers subside.

"Kylo, this isn't you," Hux tries, drawing Kylo's blank stare back to him. "Snoke used you. He only ever needed you to dig up those masks."

Kylo takes a swing at him. Hux ducks, barely in time, as the lightsaber snarls over his head. He feints, then dodges in the opposite direction when Kylo brings the ‘saber down again. He slips out from under him and around, and only just avoids the searing heat of the blade. Kylo whips around to face him, features set in that same dispassionate, cold expression, and advances on him slowly. 

Hux backs away.

"You don't have to let this control you," he pleads, glancing behind him to gauge his distance from the door, "You're stronger than that. You can fight it. The Kylo I know would never allow himself to be used as Snoke's puppet."

Kylo lunges forward and swings at him, heavily. Hux springs back, the tip of the lightsaber hissing past him only inches away from his throat, the heat of it uncomfortably close.

"Ren. Don't do this. Don't--"

Kylo brings the saber up sharply, tilting the blade. Hux pitches his arms up instinctively to block, but he isn't quite fast enough: heat sears into the side of his left forearm as the lightsaber bites into it, dragging painfully over his elbow and cutting right up under his wrist. The point of the fiery blade slices jaggedly through skin and bone, sinking into the flesh and tender muscle and severing the fragile tendons stretching up into his hand. He cries out, dropping to his knees, the fingers of his other hand curling weakly around the wound. The pain is overwhelming, every nerve ending in his arm on fire. His fingers spasm weakly with every jolt of fresh pain as signals from his brain try to reach the severed tendons, and fail.

And this is it, he realizes. This is how it ends. He slumps over his arm, squeezing his eyes shut in sudden exhaustion and despair. He's so tired. He hurts so much. He can't fight it anymore. Doesn't want to. He never stood a chance on his own, not against the power of the Dread Masters. And of all the ways he's ever imagined himself dying, he never thought he would go out like this - but faced with it, now, here at the end, it feels strangely right, that Kylo should be the one to finish him. And so he braces for the inevitable, for the final blow of the lightsaber that will sever his neck or pierce through his chest.

It never comes.

Slowly, he pries his eyes open, tilting his head up to peer at Kylo through the haze of pain-induced tears in his eyes.

Kylo is standing very still, staring blankly ahead of himself into empty space. The lightsaber is lowered to his side, blade sputtering. Hux stares, eyes flickering between Kylo's: a very slight frown dimples the forehead between his dark brows, the first sign of any kind of emotion Hux has seen on his face since Oricon. 

After so long holding his breath, he allows himself a deep gasp of air, firmly trying to ignore the searing pain in his arm and hand as he straightens, getting to his feet. Another deep breath, in and out. Kylo is still staring in front of him dully, but that frown, that tiny wrinkle between his brows...

"Kylo...?" he tries, tentatively, keeping his voice soft as he leans ever so slightly closer. Every instinct is telling him to run, to take this chance to escape back to freedom, to life, but he ignores it. He can see Kylo's chest rising and falling with shallow, short breaths, every muscle in his arms bulging with tension as if straining against something, some invisible force.

Hux licks his lips slightly, gathering his courage, then surges forward before he can second guess himself, putting the pain in his hand firmly in the back of his mind as he takes advantage of the momentary lull and flings his arms around Kylo's neck, throwing caution to the wind to kiss him with every single bit of desperation he can muster. He's going to die either way. If this isn't enough to break whatever spell has befallen Kylo, at least Hux will have this one memory, this one good thing to take with him into death.

[](https://img00.deviantart.net/60d6/i/2017/346/0/a/kiss_in_the_dark_by_zaera_d-dbwklp9.jpg)

Kylo is solid and warm and large, and he doesn't kiss back, doesn't respond or even move at all, still and immobile as rock. Eventually, Hux has to break away for air, searching his golden eyes for any kind of reaction, and when he finds none he presses his lips to Kylo’s again and again, over and over, relentlessly, kissing the side of his mouth and biting softly at his bottom lip. 

And he can feel the exact moment it starts to work: the hard and stiff planes of his back soften into a curve as he bends over Hux. The growl of the lightsaber cuts abruptly short, plunging the room into darkness as it sputters out. It clatters loudly to the ground next to them.

And then Kylo's arms are around Hux, tight enough to bruise, and he's kissing back, warm and wet and desperate. Kylo sags against him, and when Hux pulls away to look at him again, his eyes are warm and liquid brown, tears shimmering down his cheeks in the faint little lights of the consoles.

Hux stares, overwhelmed with shock and relief and a mix of indescribable emotion. As if his legs are unable to bear his weight anymore, Kylo sinks to the ground, arms dragging down around Hux's body to clutch at his waist. His cheek presses into Hux's stomach, shoulders shaking. 

"H-Hux..." - and it's Kylo's voice, colored with warm familiarity after so long not hearing it - "What have I done...?"

Hux isn't sure how to react. Some part of him doesn't entirely believe that it actually worked, sure that this is just another trick of the Masters, another warped and twisted way to torture him. His mouth works, but no sound comes out.

Kylo turns his face and buries it in Hux's stomach, muffling his voice. "I couldn't fight him anymore. I tried so hard... but he was too strong. He overwhelmed me and I lost sight of, of everything... of you. I could do nothing but sit back and drown in the depths of my own despair as I watched him take me over."

Hux allows his eyes to flit briefly to the ceiling at the melodramatic statement, then asks, faintly, "...who took you over?", though he already knows the answer.

"The spirit of Dread Master Sytrak."

Hux shuts his eyes in resignation. "He must be very powerful, if he could control you."

"You have no idea."

Hux sits down because his legs refuse to carry him anymore, and he's exhausted and aching and bleeding, but mostly he's just relieved to have Kylo back. 

Kylo bites his lower lip lightly, hands fisting in the hem of his tunic and unable to meet Hux's eyes. "Snoke is Calphayus."

Hux nods wearily. "I know." 

"He needed all of the Dread Masters together to complete the ritual. That's why Sytrak--"

"I know," Hux interrupts him. He shifts to drape his thighs over Kylo's, heels resting on the floor behind his back, the need to be close to him sudden and immediate. Kylo's arm wraps around his waist to support him automatically. He stares at a vague spot on the ground until Hux lays his good hand on his chest, spreading his fingers over his collarbone. His other arm lay cradled in his lap, peeled open, the cut deep enough to expose the fine bones of his wrist, and smelling slightly metallic, of burnt flesh and material and blood.

Kylo's eyes flicker to the injury, one hand lifting as if to touch it, but stopping just short, afraid and hovering. "Hux... I..."

"Never mind that now," Hux says firmly. "We need to stop Snoke."

Kylo tears his eyes away from the wound unwillingly, looking up at Hux. "That. Wasn't. Me." He insists, staring at him intently, eyes boring into his with that strange intensity he sometimes has. "You know that, right?"

"Of course I know that," Hux says with a slight roll of his eyes. "The real you would have removed the arm completely." He regrets it the moment the words leave his mouth. Kylo looks like he kicked him, a pained expression on his face.

Hux clicks his tongue with a shake of his head. "Oh come on, I'm fine. It's nothing a little bacta won't fix."

Kylo looks down again, a deep frown hidden behind the fall of his sweat-damp hair as it flops over his eyes. When he speaks, it comes out in a snarl, angry and vengeful. "Snoke." He clenches his fist on top of Hux's thigh. "I trusted him. Gave my life to him. And he betrayed me.  _ Used _ me. All those years he was in my head... it wasn't because I was special. I was nothing; just a shell. He was digging into me, carving out the grooves for Sytrak to seep into when I touched that kriffing mask."

Hux watches him quietly, arm aching and raw.

Kylo grits his teeth. "And that  _ wraith _ settled over my mind like a blanket, wormed his way right into my skull. It was like this black fog that clouded over my thoughts, and I got lost... trapped inside it. I could still see and hear everything that was happening, but I had no control. I got shoved to the back of my own head, and I could feel him inside of me, constantly pressing up against my thoughts. I  _ became _ him, and he became me."

"Not all of you," Hux points out. When Kylo looks up, he continues, "There was one part of you he couldn't control, couldn't crush under his power. Your link to the Force."

Kylo sighs, shaking his head lightly. "No, not my link to the Force. My link to  _ you_." He reaches up, cupping Hux's cheek lightly. "It allowed me to keep hold of some part of who I really am."

Hux swallows. "That's how you found me."

"It took everything I had, breaking his hold enough to reach out to you. In the Hive, on Belsavis… I wanted to do more, but..."

Hux reaches up to cup his face with his good hand, letting his thumb rest lightly on the bottom of Kylo's scar. "You did enough."

They fall silent, staring at what they can make out of each other in the darkness, and then Kylo tugs him forward and they're kissing again, hard, hands clutching and grasping and trying to pull themselves as close to each other as they can. Kylo is warm and firm and steady, and after all the fear and absurdity and doubt of the last few days, it feels like he’s the only thing in the entire galaxy keeping Hux tethered to reality anymore. And they don't need any words, but if they did break apart long enough to speak, they might say things like "I love you", and "I know".

Eventually, they both need to breathe, so Hux pushes Kylo away slightly. After so long with only the wet sounds of their kissing to break the silence, his voice sounds oddly loud, and hoarse with exhaustion. "Sytrak is gone?"

Kylo shakes his head lightly. He's fussing with his cowl, tugging on it until it comes loose enough to unwind into a broad swath of coarse black material. This he tugs between his hands until it rips in two, tearing a long and fraying strip of cloth from the bottom of the hood. "Not gone. Just... waiting. I can still feel him, right on the edge, waiting for me to drop my guard for one second. Just one. That's all he needs." He looks up. "Hux. We have to destroy them."

Hux nods, and although he can't even begin to imagine how they are going to accomplish this, he tries to sound certain when he says, "We will." He watches quietly as Kylo takes his injured arm, lifting it and turning it lightly from side to side to inspect it with the ripped strip of cloth between his teeth.

Kylo's fingers lightly trace the edges of the deep gash wrapping around Hux's forearm, starting at his elbow and curving around his arm to the soft flesh of his wrist. It glistens a kind of deep black-red even in the dark. Cauterised tangles of flesh seal off most of the ruptured arteries, but some blood still trickles over the burnt ridges of skin and muscle, pooling inside the gorge where the bones of his arm are visible, shifting feebly with every movement of his hand. His fingers twitch weakly in Kylo's palm, beyond his control, and when he tries to curl his hand into a fist, it doesn't respond at all. A wave of nausea washes over him at the sight, and he has to turn his head away, squeezing his eyes shut against the vertigo suddenly threatening to overwhelm him.

“We have to separate them,” Kylo says around a mouthful of cloth, “It’ll weaken them.” 

Hux nods faintly, can feel him wrapping the makeshift bandage around his arm, but the wound itself is almost completely numb except for a dull, distant throb, which probably isn't a good sign. 

He tells himself they can't worry about that right now. They have bigger concerns. 

When he's done, Kylo leans in to kiss him again, more softly this time, and although time is pressing and the need to get out of this small and trapped little room is urgent, Hux allows it for a few moments. He isn't sure if Kylo is using the Force, but it's as if the pain in his arm fades away, at least a little, replaced by a kind of gentle warmth spreading out over the rest of his body, easing away some of his nausea and lightheadedness.

Kylo pulls away, resting his forehead against Hux's for a moment, then pushes himself upright. Cloth rustles softly as he rearranges the cowl around his neck.

Hux joins him, more slowly, his body protesting loudly against having to get to his feet. He aches in places he didn't even know he  _ had_. His wounded arm throbs painfully when he lets it hang next to his side, so he quickly lifts and cradles it against his chest instead. He follows the sound of Kylo as he bends to pick up his discarded lightsaber hilt, clipping it onto his belt. "How?"

Kylo shrugs one shoulder, leather arm-plating creaking slightly. "We kill Snoke."

"Right." Hux nods. "How?"

"Not sure yet."

"That fills me with confidence.”

Kylo grabs his uninjured hand and pulls him toward the door, somehow managing to avoid stumbling over or otherwise bumping into anything in the dark. "We can work on it. Right now, we've got to get out of here before they find us."

Hux has no choice but to follow as he pulls them out of the small room and into the desolate hallways of the Finalizer, their steps echoing in tandem as they hurry back toward the command bridge and the not-room where Snoke and the Dread Masters wait.

Now that they're on the move, Hux spares a brief, nostalgic thought for the comms room. He would give anything to just stay there with Kylo, in the black and the cold, quite content to just sit and wait for whatever fate befalls them, because at least they'll be together. He fights down a sigh: as his father used to say, wishes are for fools.

They clamber up narrow, dusty stairwells in favor of using the elevator, and jog lightly through the twisting maintenance alleys and unused service walkways crawling underneath the main corridors of the ship. Their boots echo hollowly off of air ducts and purifying units, interrupted by the hissing bursts of steam and coolant that fill the belly of the ship. Hux takes the lead, and  guides them unerringly through the maze of tunnel-like back-passageways in the direction of the command bridge, keeping them away from the common areas of the ship as much as he can. He's not about to risk running into any more energy orbs unless he absolutely has to.

Kylo is quiet behind him, and Hux can't help but glance back at him every so often. He tells himself it's to make sure Kylo still follows, that he hasn't been snatched away by some unseen foe. He tells himself it isn't so he can search out the color of his eyes with every peek, straining through the gloom until he's sure they're brown and not liquid gold.

After what feels like hours, but can't have been more than a few minutes, they reach the mess hall, which spans several floors and neatly blocks off the maintenance duct they've been creeping through. A dead end. Hux stops at the durasteel wall sealing off the corridor, resting his good hand on his hip and tilting his head back. The only way to the other side is to go up, through a hatch leading into the kitchen. 

A short ladder set into the hull of the ship joins the two, the very bottom rungs ringed with rust. Kylo, stooping slightly under the low ceiling of the passageway, stops next to Hux, and they exchange a glance. Wordlessly, Kylo scales the ladder, pushing the hatch open and disappearing inside. A moment later, his hand appears through the hole. Hux reaches up to grasp it, and is about to set his foot on the ladder to start climbing when Kylo just hauls him up and through the hatch in a display of raw strength so effortless and simple Hux can't help but roll his eyes slightly.

After the close and musty air of the service ducts, the kitchen is open and cold and crisp. The hum of the conservators seems loud in the quiet, and the polished steel surfaces of the counters glisten dully in the dim emergency lighting. The wall to his immediate left is marred with long streaks of dark red, as if a bloody hand had tried to claw into the very hull, scrabbling for purchase before being dragged away. 

Hux tries not to look at it. He cradles his injured arm to his chest. His breath mists slightly before him. On the other side of the kitchen is a set of swinging doors leading into the mess hall itself. The room beyond the little circular windows set into them is completely black. He's about to set off toward them when Kylo puts a hand on his shoulder with a soft, "Wait." He's frowning, head tilted slightly to the side. "I sense something..."

The hair on the back of Hux's neck stands up. He glances at the doors again, but they are quiet and still, and he can't see or hear anything. He swallows lightly, all his senses straining. His heartbeat picks up. Kylo pushes him in behind him, crouching slightly as he creeps toward the swinging doors, and Hux keeps as close as he can, stopping just short of fisting a hand in the back of Kylo’s cowl.

Kylo slowly reaches out, pushing one door open only a crack, and pauses.

Something is moving in the darkness beyond.

Hux's heart pounds in his chest. Kylo's lightsaber is in his hand now, and he can hear him take a deep breath. In one fluid movement, he kicks the door aside and sprints through. Hux follows closely behind before the door can swing shut again. He's not about to wait in the macabre, blood-soaked kitchen.

Several things happen at once: the growl of the lightsaber splits the air, igniting with a red flash bright enough to blind. Several voices cry out in surprise, one - a woman - screaming loudly. Footsteps pound on the floor, and something barrels into Hux from the side, knocking him off his feet and right into Kylo. Kylo, who is too big and heavy to be unbalanced, lurches forward only a bit before swinging around, bringing his lightsaber arching toward the threat. From behind Hux, a voice suddenly yells, "Wait! Please!"

And Kylo stops, just like that, freezing with the sputtering blade spearing straight over where Hux is still awkwardly draped against his hip.

Hux turns his head to follow the lightsaber, and stares: a few feet away, Dopheld Mitaka is kneeling on the ground, arms raised to both sides in a pleading gesture. "Please," he begs again, cringing away from them and squinting against the bright light.

The lightsaber sucks itself in, plunging the room into darkness once again. But as Hux gets to his feet, using Kylo's shoulder as a lever, he can hear movement all around him, the sounds of breathing and soft, fearful murmurs, the rustling and clicking and shifting of many bodies huddling tightly together.

The crew of the Finalizer. 

They're alive.

 

\---

 

Once his eyes have adjusted to the gloom of the mess hall, he slowly starts to pick out details: here and there small groups of officers and staff and Stormtroopers huddle together, crowded into the corners and against the back wall, trying to make themselves small, invisible. Their eyes are haunted, faces drawn and pale, and they glance fearfully around themselves, starting at the slightest sounds. No one dares to speak.

Mitaka sits on the floor near one of the counters, leaning against a tall stool with his arms wrapped around his knees, gaze fixed firmly on the floor. Kylo is crouching beside him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

"Sorry again for attacking you," the young lieutenant is saying, voice subdued, "I just... I didn't know what else to do. I couldn’t just stand by and let anyone else die."

"I'll admit that you were brave," Hux replies, "taking on an unknown enemy like that. Very brave. In fact,  _ surprisingly _ bra--"

Kylo looks at him.

Hux allows his eyes to slide up to the ceiling before grudgingly correcting himself. "Your actions were commendable, Lieutenant." He gingerly presses his fingers over the wound in his arm, which is throbbing anew from where he collided with Kylo earlier. "However, what I do not understand is why you attacked  _ me_. I've not even been on the Finalizer for the past few days."

"Well, you were with  _ him_, and..." Mitaka thumbs at Kylo, then trails off, sounding sheepish, "And I figured, well, you were the smaller target..."

Hux gives him an utterly indignant look, but before he can say anything, Kylo interrupts: "This is all of you that are left?"

Mitaka sighs slightly, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. "I'm not sure. Between those balls of light and you lurking about in the shadows..." He looks up at Kylo a bit apprehensively. "No offence."

"None taken," Kylo mutters in a way that implies this isn't entirely true. "Phasma? Rodinon?" 

"Not present," Mitaka shakes his head. "If they're alive, I don't know where they are."

"The Finalizer is a big ship," Kylo says, voice straining slightly as he straightens up. "We'll find them." He comes over to Hux slowly, keeping a careful distance between them out of habit. "I have something to take care of first. General Hux will stay here with you while I'm gone."

"I most certainly will not," Hux huffs, "I'm coming with you."

"No. I've already put you in enough danger."

"You can't seriously think you can face Calphayus on your own, Ren."

"Look at you," Kylo fires back. "You're wounded, tired. You'd only slow me down."

"He does have a point," Mitaka chimes in. When both Hux and Kylo turn to glare at him, he clears his throat awkwardly, getting up and shuffling away to join one of the small huddles of crew members near the kitchen.

Hux gives Kylo a pointed stare, and lowers his voice. "This is  _ my _ ship.  _ My _ crew he's been slaughtering. He's made things personal. I'm coming with you."

Kylo watches him uncertainly, gnawing on his lip. Hux raises one eyebrow very slightly at him. 

Kylo sighs shortly. "I'm not going to manage to convince you otherwise, am I." He says it more like a statement than a question, and as he looks away, Hux catches what may be a glimpse of fear in his eyes. He wants to touch Kylo's face, assure him that it will be fine, that  _ he'll _ be fine.

Instead, he turns on his heel and marches to the door, trying to look more confident than he feels. He can sense Kylo watching his back, can practically hear him arguing with himself. But in the end, he follows, as he always does, his heavy uneven footsteps trailing after Hux as they head into the dark bowels of the Finalizer, to whatever fate awaits them there.

 

\---

 

The ship is quiet - eerily so. Even the deep and constant drone of the ion drives seems subdued, a barely-audible hum, trilling ever so softly through the bones of the hull. They don't meet any more survivors. If they're out there, they've hidden well, secreted away quietly in the unseen nooks and crannies of the ship. They don't come across anything that might indicate any signs of life at all, except where life once was, and ended in an abrupt and violent way. 

With the lack of any more service paths this high up in the Finalizer, they're forced to keep to the main hallways of the ship, and their pace slows considerably. The angular, sprawling corridors are completely black in some parts, not even the emergency strip-lights showing them the way; here, Kylo ignites his lightsaber and uses it as a makeshift torch, and Hux tries not to shy away from him.

Exhaustion and pain clamor inside Hux, fogging his mind and dragging his steps. Part of him yearns for the quiet closeness of the crewmembers corralled in the mess hall, the safety of their numbers and the peace of rest they would afford. He squashes that thought firmly and resolutely: with Kylo returned to his old self and the persisting lack of any more orbs of icy white-blue energy, he's starting to think they may have weakened Snoke, interrupting his ritual by removing one of the Dread Masters from the picture. This, at least, bolsters Hux a bit. He's beginning to feel like they might just stand a chance.

So of course, when they round the next corner, they almost run right into a large sphere of spiking, hissing blue energy, screaming down the corridor straight toward them. 

Hux's instincts take over. He grabs Kylo's cowl and drags him roughly to the side, using all of his power to shove him against the wall. Kylo's "What are you--" is cut off in a harsh expulsion of breath.

Hux uses his entire weight to hold Kylo in place beneath him, bracing his forearms on the wall to either side of his head and squeezing his eyes shut, flattening them both to the hull as much as he can. He can feel the orb hurtle past right behind him, churning the air, spitting and hissing and screaming and painfully, piercingly cold. And then it barrels around the corner, and is gone.

Kylo shifts slightly under Hux, peeling his cheek away from the hull to stare after the orb with a frown. "What  _ was _ that?"

Hux, still plastered to his back with his nose in Kylo’s hair, says, "I don't know. But nothing it touches survives."

There is a brief silence, both of them trying to get their breathing under control. Hux can feel Kylo's heart racing, beating hard where his back meets Hux’s chest. He firmly tries to ignore the way Kylo shifts lightly beneath him. 

But then Kylo says, "Hux...? Are you...?"

Hux opens his eyes. There is a pregnant silence.

Kylo blinks a few times. Then he clears his throat and says, obviously fighting a smile, "So, uh. Is that a blaster in your pocket, or are you just happy to--" 

"I'm already starting to miss Sytrak," Hux mutters, shoving away from him.

Freed, Kylo turns to look at him. His eyes slowly slide down. 

"Not one word," Hux says, preemptively.

"Oh my god."

" _Ren_." 

Kylo gives him a shit-eating grin that crinkles his scar right up to where it meets his eye. He takes a breath to say something, but Hux lifts a finger in warning, giving him a look. Kylo shuts his mouth and turns away, arms raised in a gesture of peace. There is an awkward silence, during which Hux fusses with the lapels of his uniform tunic with his good hand, then tucks it beneath his armpit to keep himself from fidgeting.

Kylo clears his throat again, sobering up as he spots something a little further down the corridor. He makes his way over, footsteps loud in the silence that once again curls through the ship like heavy wool. He crouches down next to a heap of clothes; all that remains in the wake of the orb of the unfortunate officer they once belonged to. Lifting one empty trouser leg gingerly, he turns back to Hux, suddenly grave. "That...  _ thing _ did this?"

Hux nods and walks over slowly to join him when he's sure he has his body's physical reactions under control. "As far as I can tell, it absorbs organic matter. Breaks it down to a molecular level. Consumes it."

Kylo frowns slightly, dragging one gloved palm over his mouth and chin. He stares at the remains for some time, before seeming to come to a conclusion, resting his elbows on his knees. "They're feeding."

"Feeding..."

"That... light. The energy. It's the spiritual forms of the Dread Masters. They're restoring their physical bodies by feeding on the life essence of the Finalizer's crew. Snoke's ritual, the one you interrupted... that's what's allowing them to do this."

Hux stares at him. "I thought Snoke needed you to complete the ritual. How are they still feeding if you're...?"

Kylo shakes his head, looking down. "My part in this seems to be done, for now. I already have a body, a fully-formed vessel for Sytrak. Snoke only needed me to open the proverbial door. He can keep it open while they..." He trails off. "Once they gain enough life force, the Masters will rise. And so will Sytrak. I won't be able to hold him back once the others are fully reformed. They'll be too powerful."

"Then we must stop Snoke before they get the chance. He's the key to all of this. If we can stop him, stop the ritual, we can keep them from restoring their corporeal forms."

"They may already be too strong," Kylo says, looking up at him doubtfully.

"Nevertheless, we have to try." Hux sighs. "Besides, what could go wrong?”

Kylo gets to his feet fluidly, coming to stand in front of him. “All we have to do is kill an immortal warlord with the power to control fear itself. Should be easy."

“Easy,” Hux repeats, searching his eyes. "Any ideas?"

Kylo smiles slightly lopsidedly, the scar wrinkling over his cheek. "Maybe. But you're not going to like it."

 

\---

 

They huddle just around the corner, crouching together near one of the low strip-lights set in the hull. The hurricane of light in the room that is not the bridge rages just out of sight, bright enough to illuminate the whole corridor and casting sharp, angular shadows on their faces. Kylo presses his lightsaber into the palm of Hux's good hand, wrapping his fingers over Hux's and closing them over the hilt. "Remember. The crossguard rests across your thumb, not on top of it. You don't want to lose this hand too."

Hux scowls at him.

Kylo rotates their hands, pushing Hux's finger lightly over the activation switch. "Here. But only when you're right on top of him. Not a moment sooner, or everything goes to frag."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Hux says, watching Kylo straighten up.

"Hux." Kylo puts a hand on his shoulder, dipping his head to stare intently into his eyes. "It'll be fine." He leans forward to kiss Hux's forehead lightly, then steps back, drawing his cowl up over his head. Its hem drapes over the hollow of his throat, slightly shorter than before, if just as frayed.

Hux presses his back against the wall and closes his eyes to wait as Kylo disappears around the corner. Soon, he can make out the soft murmur of voices, barely audible over the howling light inside the not-room.

He waits a few moments, then peeks around the corner. Through the gaping, doorless entryway, two silhouettes dance in front of the raging energy hurricane. The larger, black form of Kylo has taken a knee in front of Snoke, who has turned to face him, small and bent. Their voices carry in drifting snatches, whipped away into the roar of the blue light behind them.

Hux waits a few moments more, until he's sure Snoke's attention is fully on Kylo, then slips around the corner, pressing as close to the hull as he can. He keeps his eyes firmly rooted on Snoke, sneaking into the not-bridge behind him, convinced that he'll be seen, that something will give his presence away, that Snoke will turn around and catch him red-handed.

He doesn't. His eyes remain fixed on Kylo, whose hood is pulled down low enough to hide his face. Now that Hux is inside the not-room with them, he can catch fragments of words, distorted and staggered by the roar of the hurricane, but understandable.

"-- is dead?" Snoke asks.

Kylo's head dips. "Yes. He was noth-- -- than a distraction to this vessel." 

Hux's palm is starting to sweat around the lightsaber hilt. Despite Kylo's brief and vague instructions to ‘let it guide his movements' - whatever that means - he clutches onto it tightly enough for his knuckles to turn white, entirely unconfident in the strength of his non-dominant hand. 

Freezing against the wall for a moment, he takes a deep breath, and licks his lips nervously. This is going to work. Snoke has no idea he's coming. This is going to work. He repeats it like a mantra as he pushes away from the wall and creeps toward Snoke, rolling his feet step by cautious step.

"Good," Snoke drawls, "-- --not tolerate distractions. Nor will I tolerate lies."

Hux freezes. Kylo looks up at Snoke, eyes wide. 

Hux can't see Snoke's face, but he can hear the cruel smile twisting through the condescending tone of his voice. "You really thought I wouldn't recognize my old apprentice when I saw him?"

And he turns, just ever so slightly, glancing over his shoulder in Hux's direction. Shadows dance in the ridges of his twisted face, in the very corners of his golden eyes. Hux's head whips around just in time to see an orb of blue energy detaching from the column and surging toward him. As if from far away, he can hear Kylo yelling "no!", and it's as if the sound stretches, echoing over a vast space. Hux pushes off the floor and into a sprint, one leg rising much too slowly in front of the other, as if he's suddenly trying to run under water. Snoke still has his back turned to him, and beyond the profile of his vicious grin, Kylo is lurching to his feet, arms stretching out in front of him and fingers curling into talons. The icy cold of the energy orb sears into Hux's back. He tightens his grip on the lightsaber and hurls himself toward Snoke desperately, thumb sliding over the activation switch.

The lightsaber flares to life right as Kylo catches the orb racing after Hux with the Force, holding it in place through what is clearly a massive exertion of power. He snarls, face contorted with the strain. 

Snoke twists around, one arm flinging out in a wide arc toward Hux. An invisible force slams into Hux’s body, hard enough to fling him back, bent at the waist. The lightsaber deactivates, its hilt ripping out of his palm and he fumbles for it, and he just manages to catch it in his wounded hand, desperation forcing the injured tendons to tighten and his fingers to curl around the handgrip. And then his whole body freezes, hardening like stone, and no matter how hard he fights or flails or strains against the hold, he can't move at all, caught in perfect stasis between Snoke and the orb of light. The lightsaber sits uselessly in his hand, warm and heavy inside the broken cage of his fingers. 

Seemingly satisfied with his Force grip on Hux, Snoke folds his hands behind his back, turning back to Kylo and tilting his head slightly to regard him with a kind of disappointed pity, clearly perceptible in the patronizing tone of his voice. "You were the perfect vessel. I felt it the moment you were born. You echoed through the Force. The one I had been waiting for, all these years. And you came to me so easily."

Hux's arm shakes, pain lancing right up into his shoulder and chest with the strain of keeping his fingers curled around the lightsaber. From the corner of his eye, he catches the slightest movement: inside the column of raging, swirling light, one of the gold-crimson masks has turned toward him, watching him with vacant eyes while the others stare blankly forward. Or... is it? He tries to turn his head back as far as he can, muscles cording in his neck as he pulls against Snoke's Force hold. And then he realizes: the orb. The mask’s empty, unseeing eyes are watching the orb.

"...like a moth to the flame," Snoke is continuing. "The moment I had been waiting for for thousands of years was finally within my grasp. One so strong in the Force, in both the Light and the Dark. One who could both break the seal and be Sytrak’s vessel.

“I tried so hard to kill that single, tiny little seed of good in you. But I failed. And you... you fell in love." He shakes his head. "The one eventuality I did not account for."

With Snoke's attention wholly fixed on Kylo, Hux's mind races. The orbs are the life essence of the Dread Masters. In the center of the chaotic and swirling column of light, one of the masks has broken its lifeless facade by turning to follow the orb now held in stasis by Kylo.

Kylo growls with the effort of holding the sphere stable and away from Hux, face contorting. Through gritted teeth, he manages to say, "The only thing more powerful than fear."

Hux is so close to the light hurricane that he can feel the physical wind of its churning discord, like a kind of cold fire, frigid enough to burn. The mask glints in the light, so close, right on the other side of the storm. So close...

He bunches the muscles in his shoulder, pushing with everything he has against the Force hold keeping him immobile.

A sadistic smile colors Snoke's voice. "If you let go of the orb long enough to kill me, your General dies. But if you relinquish control, my young apprentice, if you allow Sytrak back in, I shall recall the light."

Kylo glares at Snoke, "Never."

Hux grits his teeth, straining. Come on.  _Come on..._

"Then we are at somewhat of a stalemate," Snoke replies.

Finally,  _ finally_, success: Hux's left arm lifts the tiniest bit, hand inching closer to the light hurricane. The wound throbs painfully, pain shooting into his shoulder, into the tendons of his neck. He's almost close enough to the light hurricane to touch it. The heat is unbearable, searing his hand. Just a little further...

Hux slides his thumb over the switch and uses the last ounce of his strength to plunge his arm into the column of light.

The pain is excruciating. Cold energy tears at flesh and skin and bone, eating away at his arm like acid. Kylo's makeshift bandage loosens around the dissolving muscle, then whips off his arm, fluttering into the hurricane. The lightsaber growls to life, and its stuttering blade pierces the mask, splitting it down the exact center right between its blankly staring eyeholes. The last of Hux's forearm and hand disintegrates, and with nothing left to support it, the lightsaber hilt clatters to the ground, followed closely by the two halves of the mask, its golden veneer already starting to fade into a dull, lifeless bronze. 

Behind Hux, the light orb shrieks, expands, and then implodes on itself in less than a second of reverse violence, winking out of existence

Snoke twists around to stare at Hux in shock. Next to him, the light column flares wildly, spiking out of control with the loss of one of the Masters. Kylo surges forward, barrelling right into Snoke and pushing him physically into the light. There is a piercing, agonizing scream as the light envelopes his frail body, starting to tear it apart. Kylo stumbles back, aghast, staring as the Supreme Leader slowly dissolves into nothing.

Hux drops to the floor painfully the moment Snoke's hold on him vanishes. He drags himself to the side and away from the column of light as it rages, spinning wildly out of control, its shrieking wail rising to a crescendo. Bright beams of light stream from the hurricane, washing the walls blue-white.

And then everything goes dark.

The column simply ceases to be, the roar of its swirling chaos abruptly cut off into silence. The remaining masks clatter to the floor in its absence.

Hux's mind is completely blank. He stares at the empty space where the column used to be, and all he feels is a mild sense of disbelief, bewilderment at what just happened, and a numb sense of relief that all of this is finally over. He can feel himself swaying as he pushes himself up on his remaining hand, then slumps back against the hull as his ears start ringing loudly in the sudden silence. 

He very carefully doesn't look at the abrupt end to where the rest of his left arm used to be.

He can barely make out the soft rustle of cloth and thump of booted footsteps before Kylo is kneeling next to him. His hands are all over Hux's face, his chest. He's saying something, but Hux doesn't understand the words, head heavy and thoughts filled with cotton.

"We did it," he murmurs in what he hopes is Kylo's general direction, black spots dancing behind his eyes and the ringing in his ears loud enough to drown out everything else, "You're safe..."

Kylo says something else, and it sounds like maybe he's asking Hux something, shaking him lightly. But static is crawling in front of Hux's eyes, and the ringing in his ears has turned to grey noise.

"I think," he manages, voice loud inside his head, "I think I'm going to pass out."

And then he slumps forward onto Kylo, and is lost to the world.


	11. Epilogue - Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

> na-Mevrain, T (136 ABY) _ A Further Record of the Known Sith Objects of Power and Their Influence on Modern Warfare  _
> 
> "Arguably the most powerful of the Sithborn Objects of Power were the Phobis Devices. Never in the history of the Empire have any Objects been surrounded by such mystery and controversy. Following their creation, several factions vied for control of their potential for destruction. However, the only recorded instance of the Devices ever being successfully wielded was by a group of Sith extremists, known at the time as the Dread Masters. 
> 
> The key to their mastery of the Phobis Devices, where so many others had failed before, seems to have been a result of channeling the Devices' raw power through Objects of their own creation, rather than trying to wield it directly. 
> 
> The Dread Masters would go on to successfully employ the power of the Phobis Devices in over sixty different campaigns under the reigning Emperor before forsaking their alignment with the Empire in favor of forming a separatist faction.
> 
> As formidable as they were, however, even the Dread Masters could not harness the true power of the Devices. That same power would eventually tear them apart, causing their party to fracture; a division that would cripple them enough to allow the combined efforts of the Sith and, later, the Empire itself to incarcerate them.
> 
> The Masters would meet their eventual end in 34 ABY, at the hands of the Imperial-descendant faction then known as the First Order. The Phobis Devices, however, were never recovered, and their present location remains unknown to this day."

 

\---

 

His head swims with lingering anaesthesia, eyelashes sticking together, tongue thick and chest heavy. He tries to turn his head and the thin strips of the visible world blur, merging again just slightly too slowly, like an afterimage, a mirage in a desert, before fading behind closed eyes. He tries again, and the less-grey patch in the wall resolves itself into a viewport: a muted glitter of stars outlining the black negative space of the side of the Finalizer's hull, stretching into the night. He stares at it until it becomes battlements and laser cannons, satellite dishes and transponder receivers. He stares at it until it becomes the viewports of the lower decks, tapering down to where the pointed tip of the ship spears toward deep space. 

And there, where the Finalizer ends and the night begins, he imagines a small blur of orange and yellow, shining out into the darkness surrounding them, smoke billowing into the black. It makes him think of burials and of dead things and  _ don't be ridiculous, fires can't burn in space_. Underneath the covers, something heavy and cold presses against his side. 

He drifts off with the fire still raging and dreams of gold and crimson, and of running.

 

\---

 

His eyes open again when the bed dips behind him. His quarters are dark, lights set to zero percent and the viewport dimmed to its lowest setting. Faint lines and grey edges form the silhouettes of his desk, the hoverchair, the closed doors to the refresher. A medical droid stands silent sentry nearby, optics dark. The quiet hiss of the air vents and deep drone of the engines underlie the familiar muffled sounds of the ship outside.

A soft rustle of cloth - the mattress shifts with movement.

His head still swims as he turns back, peering blearily into the dark where a deeper shadow is sitting on the edge of his bunk. The sheets whisper softly as the figure lies down behind him, accompanied by a well-known and comforting smell. Kylo's arm slides around his waist, pulling him back against his heat and his breadth.

Hux relaxes into it, swallowing past the thickness in his throat and trying to fight off the heavy sedatives even now dragging at his consciousness like quicksand.

Only one coherent thought breaks through the mist, a delirious half-memory-half-fear. "It is  _ you_," he murmurs, voice hoarse with disuse, "Isn't it?"

Sleep claims him again before Kylo can answer.

 

\---

 

Hux gasps, sitting bolt upright. His heart hammers against his ribcage as he whips around, trying to make sense of where he is, of  _ when _ he is. As the world slowly starts piecing itself together, it reveals the familiar, low-beamed ceiling and warm lighting of his quarters on the Finalizer. Outside the viewport hovers a planet he's never seen before, a kind of dusty pink and encircled by many rings. No fires light the tip of the ship’s hull, no smoke billows into space. The muffled echo of an announcement over the ship's speaker system leaks through the door. Softer, further away, muted by walls and distance, are the telltale sounds of construction: the grating screech of a magsaw cutting through durasteel and the intermittent pounding of a vibrohammer.

Wrinkled black sheets pool around his waist, rustling with his movements. He's covered in cold, drying sweat. He’s wearing a shirt he doesn’t recognize, at least two sizes too large and clinging uncomfortably to his back and the crease between his thighs and hips. A dull headache sits in the exact center of his forehead. He scrubs his hands over cheeks dusted with stubble and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, then pulls them away when sudden cold meets his face instead of the warm softness of skin.

He pauses, then shoves up the overlong sleeve of the shirt to stare at his left hand, no longer the color of something alive but a silvery black, ringed with fine lines where steel curves around the bends of his fingers and dips between his knuckles and wrinkles in the stretch between his forefinger and thumb. He rotates this hand slowly, and watches the way the light catches on the stark and slightly jagged pink-black seam below his elbow, where flesh meets carbon fiber. He clenches his fist, and on the very edge of hearing, so soft he thinks he may have imagined it, is the whispered whine of tiny pistons and actuators curling each mechanical finger into place.

He listens to the deep and hidden drone of the engines, and tries to make out words in the muted announcements coming from outside, and wonders whose shirt he's wearing, and stares at his left hand. He hastily looks away when he starts to feel the edges of a very large and indescribable emotion creeping up on him, and when he swallows, that emotion seems to stick in his throat, coating it like tar.

The dark grey carpet is coarse and scratchy and familiar underneath the soles of his feet. It takes him a second to orient himself; whatever medication he's been given blurs the edges of things and makes the world just a little skewed, but he manages a few slightly unsteady steps to reach his desk, hands shaking as he tugs open the drawer to retrieve his cigarras and lighter.

Behind him, the medical droid comes to life, whirring as it trundles toward him on its little wheels, and monotones, "Are you in need of assistance." It doesn't have a face, but the display screen built into its chest is covered with running reams of data Hux is too tired to make sense of. 

Hux ignores it, shaking the cigarra box until one tumbles out onto the desk. He lifts it to his mouth, and his hands are shaking so badly now that he can't keep a solid grip on the lighter.

The droid persists. "Are you in need of assistance."

The mechanical fingers are steady where they grasp the cigarra, but the human part of his arm is not. He can't quite manage to align the cigarra and lighter, can't quite manage to ignite a flame. He tries again, and again.

"Are you in need of assis--"

"I am not!" Hux snaps, "In need! Of assistance!"

He throws the cigarra and lighter down. They rebound off the edge of the desk and topple to the floor. The cigarra rolls to a stop against his foot. Hux leans forward heavily on the desk, chest heaving.

Behind him, the door to the refresher hisses open. A cloud of steam billows out into the room, followed by Kylo, wearing only a towel around his waist, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He's at Hux's side in an instant, hands on his shoulders and a concerned expression on his face. The droid, dismissed, shambles sulkily to the corner.

Kylo pulls Hux gently up, turning him around and pushing him down on top of the desk. He bends to retrieve the lighter from the floor and shakes a new cigarra out of the box, pressing it between Hux's lips. When Kylo lights it for him, Hux cups his good hand around the flame until it takes, then closes his eyes and waits for the calming effects of the smoke to take hold; hoping they will. Kylo stands between his thighs and lets him rest his cheek on one broad shoulder, both watching the trail of Hux’s smoke to the ceiling.

When Hux eventually pulls back to take the cigarra from his mouth (hand still trembling a little bit), and exhale a long stream of smoke to the side, he finds Kylo looking at him with a small frown. He holds the cigarra a little unsurely between his thumb and forefingers and says, "What."

Kylo says, "Nothing," and then seems to change his mind: "Darth Vader lost a hand, too."

Hux stares at him.

Kylo breaks his gaze, looking slightly uncomfortable. 

Hux takes another drag, deciding to let it go. For now. "My crew?"

"There are... not many survivors. Mostly Stormtroopers. They were better at... not dying than the others. Field experience, I guess."

Hux considers this, holding the cigarra close to his lips but not quite against them. He'd not had what he would consider friends among the higher ranking officers, but they were good men. Their death will be a loss for the First Order. The wide sleeve of his borrowed shirt - Kylo's shirt - slips down his forearm, pooling in the crook of his elbow. 

"The ship's quiet," Kylo continues, "It's... disturbing. Everything has this sense of purposelessness, of drifting."

Hux sniffs, then takes another drag, holding the smoke inside his chest as long as he can. He wonders if Phasma made it out alive. He wonders what the First Order's investors are saying, what they'll do now that Snoke is gone. He wonders when the Resistance is going to swoop in and take advantage of the lull in Order activity. Mostly, he just tries to avoid thinking about his arm.

Kylo watches him, then says, "Hey."

And when Hux looks up he leans in for a kiss, big hands sliding over Hux’s back and pulling him close, slipping up over his spine and burying in his hair. The cigarra sits, smoking and forgotten between Hux's fingers as they just kiss, and kiss, and kiss. And then they pull away and rest their foreheads together, content to just share each other's breaths.

And when Hux is starting to feel close to normal again he pushes Kylo away lightly by the chest, looking up at him.

And pauses. The hair on his forearms stands up. Cold panic races like ice up his spine, adrenaline pumping heavily through his heart. Every muscle tenses, ready to run. The lingering anaesthetic fog over his mind is gone in an instant.

Kylo's eyes are pure, solid gold.

And then he blinks, and it's gone, his gaze warm brown and filled with concern for Hux. "Hey... what's wrong?"

It happened in a second. An instant, there and gone so fast Hux might have imagined it, but he's sure he didn't. Dread fills his stomach, leaving him cold and feeling alone.

He swallows, and asks, slowly, "What happened to the masks?"

Kylo frowns slightly. "What?"

"The masks," Hux says, more firmly, "What happened to them?"

"They're gone, Hux," Kylo says, softly. "They were destroyed, along with Snoke. You were there. You saw it."

Hux stares at him, at his eyes, and frowns, and tries to find even a little speck of gold in them, any evidence at all that he shouldn't believe what Kylo is saying. He half-reaches out to touch Kylo's face, but pauses, unable to close the gap between them. He pulls his hand away and suddenly finds himself surrounded by Kylo, crushed to his chest in a hold strong enough almost to hurt. 

"They're gone," Kylo says again, murmuring the words into his hair. "It's over." His warmth seeps into Hux. 

Hux allows himself to relax into Kylo's strong arms, but he can't close his eyes, can't erase the memory of that golden gaze from his mind. He knows what he saw.

Kylo’s wrong. It's not over.

It's only just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Dread Masters](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dread_Masters) are taken from the Star Wars: The Old Republic games, as are most of the locations ([Belsavis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FXXbyqJ5Vw), [Oricon](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Oricon)).  
> Fun fact, I knew nothing about SW:TOR before starting to write this, so there are probably a few discrepancies with the games ^^;; Apologies if I have completely slaughtered the lore.


End file.
